


No Lowly Mortal

by Checkerbox



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, M/M, and kevin handles a situation in desert bluffs like a good community leader, carlos gets put on trial, cecil is miserable, cross-dimensions, the city under the pin retrieval area in bowling lane 5, violence isn't terribly bad but there's lots of blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-01-10 10:16:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 30,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12297111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Checkerbox/pseuds/Checkerbox
Summary: Wracked with insomnia after a terrible revelation, Cecil is thrown from his routine when some strange interference brings an usual visitor onto his show, talking about a man he's never met and a life he's never led.[Edit: Now expanded into a multi-chapter fic]





	1. He Was Beautiful

Ever since that ghastly vision, every night Cecil had felt like he was on fire just beneath the surface of his skin. In late hours his mind was alight with discordant thoughts, impossible dreams and wishes. It was maddening. He couldn't sleep, scratching at his arms and the left side of the bed as though there was supposed to be something there. Every morning he stumbled into the station like a zombie, not even bothering to speak to anyone until a nervous intern had pushed a mug full of bitter black coffee into his hand.

It went far beyond his usual malaise. It needed to end. But who could he tell his feelings? How could he explain the sudden rush of desire to people who had seen the same that he had and only felt fear?

Today was another call-in show. Something to give the people around town to make them feel more included in the community. Though typically most of the calls in shows past revolved around the same topic. The ever-looming issue that had been on everyone's minds since that terrible event so many years ago. And Cecil was pretty good at covering that topic quite extensively on his own.

He was not looking forward to it this time in particular, slapping the on-air button and making sure his headphones fit comfortably. His coffee burned as it went down his throat.

"Good day, Night Vale. Assuming that it is day. This is your host, Cecil Palmer, feeling a kick of caffeine from our boxed coffee stores and getting ready to run yet another community chat." He shoved his hand on the cough button to mute his sigh. "Now, I hate to have to remind you all, but since it came up quite a bit the last time, I must ask that anyone who calls try not to cry when talking about all the needless death and suffering from the war and how the ramifications of it still leave painful marks over all our lives. Try discussing something more pleasant, perhaps."

A low rumbling rippled across the sky, and he paused to listen in his booth. The noise was more frequent today than most days.

"--Maybe talk about the bowling competition going on at the Desert Flower Bowling Alley. I myself don't take much time to bowl, but I hear it's great fun."

Cecil downed more of his coffee and leaned back in his seat, opening the lines. Usually it took a minute for people to dial in, but one of the lights flared up immediately this time.

When he picked up, Cecil was rewarded with a sharp, earsplitting burst of static in his ears, yelping and tearing away from his chair to try and escape it. After a spending a few seconds shaking off the ensuing ringing, he cautiously put his headphones back on, finding to his surprise that there was now someone talking on the other line.

It was an unfamiliar male voice, slightly high in pitch. It was no one who had called in before, Cecil knew that for sure. It honestly didn't even sound like someone from Night Vale, the usual slow, helpless despair completely absent from his voice. Moreover, this person didn't even seem to know he was on the air--he kept going on as though speaking with an unknown third party.

"--her brand new tennis trophy! She can't accept it, of course, as she is now incorporeal, but--"

"Hello?"

The other voice immediately stopped at his greeting, though the faint buzz of static remained. He tried again, clearing his throat. "Is…someone there? Are you a caller?"

"Cecil?"

It wasn't that unusual for someone that he'd never met to know him by voice. As the host of the community radio station, he was something of a local celebrity. Especially now, with so little competition from the outside world. Still--the sound of his name spoken so familiarly, as though speaking to a best friend or an arch enemy, spooked him to his core.

Putting on his most professional voice he countered, "Yes. This is Cecil. Who--"

"Dear Cecil! I'm so pleased we're finally talking again! Even if the timing is a little inconvenient. You should pick up your phone more often, you silly goose. I've been calling but I keep having to leave you voicemails."

"I don't know what you're talking about but I think it is highly unprofessional of you to take up so much time with this rambling about me. You're taking time away from the other callers."

"Oh goodness." The voice on the other end made a low tsking noise. "You sound like such a _sourpuss_ today. That's hardly the attitude of a newlywed, Cecil."

"Newlywed?" That gave him pause. Cecil had never been married. He hadn't even dated in years--who really had the energy for it, with the grim hopelessness that was living in a skyless Night Vale? Not that Abby hadn't tried to set him up a few times. "…I think you have me confused with someone else. Did you dial the wrong number?"

"Come now. There's no way I could ever confuse that baritone of yours. Even if it is full of grim despair. Did some new calamity befall you since I last checked in?"

"I'm not married. I don't even have a boyfriend, I don't know what you're talking about. And, really, my personal life isn't appropriate for on-air discu--"

"Not married?" He heard an intake of breath. "…Perhaps I have somehow reached a Night Vale before you met your darling Carlos?" And then the other voice's tone took a complete 180 degree upshot into glee. "Well no wonder you're so miserable! Missing that ray of lovely sunshine from your life!"

"I don't know anyone named Carlos," Cecil snapped, a little irritably. Something about the voice rubbed at him like sandpaper. Not the joy--some kind of dark undercurrent beneath it. The impression he got that most of the happiness was fake.

The other man chattered on, seemingly oblivious. "Well since you haven't met Carlos yet then you certainly won't know who _I_ am. My _apologies_ for being so rude as to not introduce myself. I am Kevin, of Desert Bluffs Too."

"Desert Bluffs?" Now that name did ring a bell. In spite of himself Cecil felt a faint flicker of hope, battered and faint though it may be. His show completely forgotten at this point, so enraptured in this conversation between him and this mysterious, ominous Kevin. "Do you mean to say that I have somehow made contact with our sister town across the wastes?"

"Dear _dear_ , this is going to require some explaining. Hmm…this is probably even before the Smiling God got into our lives, isn't it?" The other voice hesitated a moment, before exhaling, talking smoothly. "Desert Bluffs…collapsed, for lack of a better way to put it."

In Cecil's mind's eye he saw an entire town falling into the sand, buildings cracking and people screaming as they were swallowed into the abyss. He shuddered.

"Now we all live in a desert otherworld. We named our new home Desert Bluffs Too! Too as in also, not the number two. --Isn't that precious?"

"So your town…is trapped too?" The despair came flushing back into his chest, briefly choking his lungs. Kevin didn't seem to notice.

"Oh I wouldn't say _trapped_. It's just a littler trickier to get back and forth, that's all. I myself have been far too busy to visit Night Vale, but several of my happy little helpers have gone down there through our new dog park."

"You can go to Night Vale?" In the face of all the impossible information, a few truths finally began to sink in. Cecil's jaw was momentarily slack, but he pulled himself together. "So you're…you're from some time in the future. That's what you said, right?"

"Well I'd have to assume so, if you don't know Carlos yet. _You_ certainly can't be in the future. The Cecil I know would never forget him. …Indeed, Carlos is regrettably…unforgettable."

For one moment the cheer was gone and in its place was bitter wistfulness. Cecil relaxed. That was an emotion he was familiar with. So perhaps this man was not so far removed from him after all.  "So this…this Carlos. …He is the harbinger of our freedom? Of the day when Night Vale is accessible to the outside world again?"

"That does seem to be the case, doesn't it?" Kevin chortled, making more tsking noises. "Lucky _you!_ He's a very charming fellow. A scientist, actually."

No scientist had ever come to Night Vale. The idea seemed so far-fetched, he couldn't help but let out a bitter chuckle. "That's funny. What interest would a scientist ever have in Night Vale?"

"Quite a great deal of interest!" Kevin paused for a moment, some more static coming in as though feedback from the microphone. Briefly, Cecil wondered if Kevin was not on a phone but rather on the air himself. The sound quality certainly seemed to suggest so. "…I mean he must. He left this desert otherworld to go back there, after all, and Smiling God knows this place is _infinitely_ more fascinating."

"You knew him too?"

"Oh, yes…" Kevin's voice trailed off a little, softening. Like the way a professional baker might sound talking about a particularly exquisite soufflé. "I too had the opportunity to meet him. We worked together for quite a while, you know. He has the most amazing smile, that Carlos. Such nice, white straight teeth."

"You remember his teeth?"

"Oh yes, you were quite taken with them yourself, according to your broadcast tapes. I believe you declared them to be like a 'military cemetery'. And that's not even going into your obsession with his hair."

A jolt of excitement brought up Cecil's posture, mouth going bone dry and hands trembling with that nervous fire that kept him awake at night. His voice dropped to a hushed, awed whisper. "You're talking about…that beautiful… _man_? The one with the flawless skin and wide, inquisitive eyes…?"

"Oh. So you… _do_ know Carlos?" Kevin chuckled, but it was confused and wrong.

"The _giant_ …"

"He's…not giant, Cecil." The cheer began to sound even more forced, almost irritated. "I'm thinking we're talking about two different people. Carlos is rather normal sized, I'd say. Maybe even a little short. He's certainly quite small compared to the _actual_ giants in this desert otherworld, that's for sure."

None of what he was saying made any sense. "There are giants even larger than him?"

"They're _giants_ , Cecil. They're larger than _everyone_."

"But he's--when he comes to Night Vale in the future, he is normal sized?"

" _Yes_ , that's what I'm saying."

"How does he shrink himself? --Is he the one that returns the sky?"

"Returns your…sky?" The connection seemed to be breaking up. He heard more words, but they were distant and unfocused, as though Kevin was speaking from somewhere impossibly far away.

"Kevin?" Faint alarm shot through Cecil, desperately fiddling with every dial in front of him, trying to regain somehow the clear connection that he'd had before. "Kevin you can't leave yet. You need to tell me more. You must know, why did Huntokar do this to us? Does she come back? How does our punishment end? _How can I meet this Carlos?_ "

"Huntokar?" Kevin spoke slowly, fuzzy static eating at his voice. "…Night Vale doesn't worship Huntokar. No, Huntokar is the god of--"  Cecil had to pull the headphones off as another burst of sound threatened his ears. Desperately, he threw them back on, only to catch, "--of lane 5. --Cecil, this is very important. Do you remember your Night Vale having a business arrangement with--"

And then he was gone.

"Kevin?" Cecil's own voice sounded hollow and small in the silence. Teased with something resembling answers only to have it so mercilessly snatched from his grip. "Are you still there?"

Nothing. Kevin was gone.

A light or two came on the phone line, and he remembered that he was hosting a radio show.  "…I'm sorry listeners, I didn't mean to…take up so much time with that, things sort of…snowballed, as I'm sure you can understand."

He glanced at his watch. It wasn't time to end the show by a long shot, but he needed to be alone for a moment.

"I think...just so I can get my bearings, let's…let's go to a pre-recorded Public Service Announcement."

Cecil pushed in a tape and pulled back from his desk, face in his hands. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep and the coffee but his head was starting to pound. The only thing that was pushing through with any clarity was the name that he could now put to the beautiful face haunting his dreams.

A face that he hated, despaired, and loved in equal measure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had originally written this to put in my collection of Kevin ficlets, but halfway through realized it was more about the Cecil in the Night Vale under Lane 5. So, I made it into an independent one-shot. I think I would like to make it into a longer fic someday, but I can't seem to finish those so I'll try not to be too ambitious.
> 
> Beg pardon it's so dialogue heavy but given the nature of the show I tend to lean more heavily towards voices of the characters talking rather than action.


	2. A Basement Door

Growing up, Steve Carlsberg did not consider himself to be a brave man. Nor did he consider himself to an inquisitive one. In fact, if he had a reputation for anything, it was for taking information as it was and not making waves.

It wasn't a bad life. He certainly didn't mind it. He was stable, and dependable, and accepting, and that was okay. It was one of the blocks upon which his marriage was founded, for one thing. His hard-working nature had earned him a place as a respected member of the community, for another. It was just that the person he had believed himself to be had--changed.

Right around the time that the entire world he lived in changed.

He'd tried to fight it, at first. No one else could see the pattern of grid lines, so perhaps he should pretend he couldn't see them too. But then there weren't a lot of people in town who looked up, who liked being reminded that they no longer had a sky. And as years went by, with their hope gradually beginning to dwindle, he found that he could no longer ignore what he knew to be his calling. He needed to find the truth.

The war with the giants had only clinched it. There was no way he was going to let his family just quietly die. Pamela Winchell had declared her intent to put a team together, some people who could leave the confines of the city and try to understand the terrifying new world that they found themselves in. Steve had been the first to sign up.

The conversation with Abby and Janice had been long and painful. They begged him not to go, told him that someone else could handle it. He knew he was loved--he knew he would be missed. But this was something that he had to do, and no attempt at persuasion could convince him otherwise. Eventually they had seen that, and accepted it.

Cecil hadn't really understood. In fact it had been one of the only times that they'd ever fought. Cecil accusing Steve of abandoning his family. Steve accusing Cecil of not doing anything to help solve their town's predicament. There had been shouting. And then, after that, crying. Steve had brought Cecil scones the next day as a peace offering and that had started up a whole new round of crying.

In the end though, he had still left. He had to. Gone were the days where he could do nothing.

There had been five of them in the beginning, when the crew first set out. Of the five of them, only two remained now. Steve, and Hiram McDaniels. An escaped convict from out of town who'd been cooling his heels in the local jail when the Change happened.

The first thing that they had discovered after getting a sufficient distance away from the city limits was that the bleak, open expanse of white that had become their new sky changed into craggy, broken rock. The openness decreased, until they were navigating strange, cave-like structures. And like caves back in the real world, they were dangerous. Sometimes people slipped, or got lost in the dark. Steve was both fortunate not to see any of his companions actually die, and tortured by not knowing what exactly happened to them. They just pressed on. The mission was the only thing that mattered.

The craggy terrain had started to level, the last few days. He wasn't sure how long they'd been out. Hiram had finally settled into a steady silence, chatterbox though he was. Steve himself hadn't had much to say for a while.

Until the last batteries to his flashlight went out. Then he had something to say.

"Damn it!"

They'd tried to spread them out--fashion torches from time to time, sleep in darkness, and so on. But they needed light. They didn't have the energy sources that Night Vale did, to leave city lights on all the time to compensate for the lack of sun. The only way they could progress was to see where they were going, to know they weren't just running around in circles hopelessly spinning their wheels so that they didn't come back to Night Vale empty handed. When the paltry light of the flashlight began to flicker, so too did Steve's hope.

"--Hiram, do you have any AAs left?"

Hiram looked rather green, digging around in one of the many packs he had tied around his waist. "I don't have much. --Jesus, Steve. Are you really out? How are we supposed to see where we're going?"

"We'll figure it out. --The terrain's changed, we're close to something. I can feel it."

"You said that before."

Bile began to rise in his throat. This was a conversation that they had had already. This time though there was no further argument. Just a look, Hiram peaking at him from over his small round spectacles.

"Hiram--"

"It's fine. Sorry. Just a little tense, that's all. Don't mean to be arguing again."

He didn't know if they were close to anything or not. Maybe they weren't. Maybe there wasn't anything to find and they were going to die out here. But there had to be a way out. Steve had seen it in that grid in the sky. They were in something subterranean, close to the surface. Sometimes they would see little gaps in the stonework, and through it he could swear he saw arrows and lines. He couldn't explain his conviction. But in times like this, it was all he had.

Whatever it was they were going towards, Huntokar wanted him there.

"…That's okay, Hiram." The flashlight sputtered a little, but after a few smacks stayed on. Steve breathed a sigh of relief. "You see? Things are starting to look up."

It was around then that the back of his head exploded into a wave of pain. He pitched forward, his cry echoing in the cavern. When he turned he saw Hiram, fists clenched, eyes wild.

" _I'M NOT DYING OUT HERE."_

And then he found himself being shoved back against the cavern wall, hearing a sharp crack and dizzily putting a hand up to the wounded part of his head.

Said hand came away covered in blood.

The floor rose up to meet him as his consciousness began to fade, a dull thud striking his forehead. Through the ringing in his ears he heard a shaky, whispered apology, and then felt his pack being torn off.

Then he didn't know anything at all.

 

* * *

              

It was the hunger that woke him up, rolling over him in waves. For a moment he just stayed there, curled up on the ground with his arms around his stomach. Not even appreciating until the feeling had ebbed that he was still alive after all.

Possible concussion and massive headache aside.

Hiram had taken his bag, so there was nothing for the hunger. There was nothing at all but going forward. Steve would never make it all the way back to Night Vale without food and water. He wasn't sure if Hiram could, even with both of their provisions combined. He just had to believe that there was something ahead. Some civilization with aid waiting for him, or some truth he could find peace in knowing before he died.

The caves had grown brighter, as though lit with some unseen moon. Though it wasn't fair to call them caves anymore. After maybe another hour of walking it smoothed into tile, like something you would find in a hospital. The reflective surface seemed only to improve the light, until it didn't even matter that his flashlight had finally died.

He stopped, saying aloud to no one, "Where are you leading me?"

As if in answer, he heard the sound of someone jiggling a door handle.

He spun, looking to the walls. A few meters ahead there was a small wooden door, water damaged at the bottom and clearly worn from age. It was the first sign of any real, man-made structure that he'd seen in ages, and immediately he went to it.

A small, ornately decorated yet _very_ beat-up chair was propped up under the handle. As though it was keeping something in. Swallowing, Steve slid the chair away, unlatched the deadbolt, and slowly pulled the door open.

There was no one there.

It didn't register at first. He had to move through the doorway for it to really sink in, mouth dropping open slightly. It seemed impossible. Unthinkable. Cold cement was under his feet and all around him. There were creaking wooden shelves filled with knickknacks, jars of jam, and storage containers.

He was in the basement of a house.

In his hungry state he couldn't help but go right for the jam, but as he reached for one of the jars a droplet of red fell on his arm.

For a moment he didn't dare move. Then, slowly, he looked up.

Blood was leaking down from the floor above.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really appreciate the positive feedback that I've gotten over the first chapter (although I haven't responded to the comments I've gotten, but that's because I'm terrible at responding to things consistently). I did want to expand on it as a series of vignettes, but I also had a kind of overarching plot in mind. So it sort of became a series of shorts that were sequential in nature. It's still a multi-chapter fic, so what I ended up doing was sit on it for over a month and write everything out so that I wouldn't get partway through another longer story without finishing. At this point, while all the writing could probably use some revision, it's loosely finished. Even if I lose all motivation to work on it (which tends to happen), there will be a conclusion.
> 
> I don't intend to leave anyone waiting for chapters that are already written, so I'm going to try and do an update schedule of every other day to give me time to polish up the rest of the fic a little. I hope the longer work is enjoyable and I thank you guys for reading it.


	3. On Trial

"… _A new man came into town today…_ "

Carlos sat in his cell, wrists chafing against handcuffs, and he listened to the broadcast.

"… _He says he is a scientist…"_

It was like some strange abstracted dream. Only, to be perfectly clear, it was actually the exact opposite of that.

"… _But we know better, listeners_ …"

If he had to describe it, if he could find something to put it into words, he would call to mind a pair of glasses that he'd read about once, that turned the whole world upside down.

"… _We know, from his perfect and beautiful haircut…"_

The human brain naturally flipped images around already, because the human eye's lenses took all images upside down. Spend a long enough amount of time wearing those glasses, and the brain would simply stop its correction, making everything right-side up again.

"… _That he is the giant…"_

Only, when you take the glasses off, the entire world was upside down.

" _…The giant who came in and shattered our world forever…"_

Being in a Night Vale, _any_ Night Vale, that had some modicum of normality to it, was like that.

"… _The perfect, beautiful giant who came in and shattered **my** world forever…"_

It was a Night Vale where _he_ was the one that was strange. Because his brain had stopped flipping things upside down a long time ago.

The guard watching him turned down the radio. Carlos frowned. "I was listening to that."

"You don’t need to be listening to Cecil tellin' you how 'beautiful' you are."

It was the one lifeline that he had to cling to, that Cecil was still Cecil even if there was a more maudlin inflection in the way he spoke. He didn't care for being without it.

Without the radio running, Carlos had a lot of time to himself, waiting alone in his cell. Enough time to get his bearings and reflect on just how he'd gotten himself in this situation. Strange and almost non-sequitur situations weren't uncommon in his life, but considering the way things were now it threw him a little more than normal.

He'd been looking into the house that didn't exist again. With all of the nonsense surrounding Strexcorp and the Desert Otherworld and Kevin he'd never really solved its secrets. The last time he and his scientists had done any actual research on it, he'd gotten trapped, so of course this time, to be absolutely careful, Carlos had left the door open with instructions to his assistants to keep it propped open with a breezeblock. And it had stayed open. And he'd walked out again like everything was normal.

Only, when he did, the sky was gone.

And when he'd asked Michelle Nguyen what had happened, she'd taken one look at him and screamed.

It didn't take him long to find out what happened and where he was, especially with the kind of accusations being leveled against him, but the shock of that revelation had made him keep his mouth shut for now. He was in the city under the pin retrieval area in lane 5 of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley And Arcade Fun Complex. The one that had almost killed him.

They were apparently very angry at him for stepping on their town several years ago.

And then of course there was Cecil, talking about him on the radio like he was some clumsy god.

Before he knew it he'd fallen asleep on the little cot they'd given him, and was jolted awake by the sound of someone clanging their nightstick on the bars. Blearily, Carlos pulled his hair out of his eyes and slid on his glasses, watching his guard stand silhouetted against the light.

"You're due in court."

 

* * *

 

 

Carlos had never been inside Night Vale's courthouse. Mostly because it hadn't existed until Hiram Mcdaniels' trial, and that had been something he missed out on. Looking at it now, it wasn't an especially glamorous building. Not like the kind of courtrooms he'd seen on TV. Though granted, it had been a good long while since he'd seen uncensored television. The ceiling was lower than he thought it should be, considering how the judge's head almost brushed against it when he finally sat at his spot. The visitor's gallery could barely hold even a fraction of the people that evidently wanted to see the trial, some citizens just standing by the edges, a few of them sharing seats. All of them looking at him.

Rather than sitting at a defendant's table, Carlos was sitting at the witness stand, facing the crowd. He had to twist his neck a little to look up at the judge as he started speaking, swinging a comically large gavel to announce that court was in session.

"Ordinarily, Carlos," the man pronouncing the name as though it left a bad taste in his mouth, "we would have you executed as a threat to the town and have that be that. However, that was back when you were larger than our tallest buildings. Seeing as now there is no longer any significant danger from you, being not even six feet tall--"

"Hey!"

"--The council has decided to put you on trial instead."

Carlos had been able to gather that much, but he bit back a sarcastic remark. He wasn't a lawyer but he suspected the proceedings weren’t like they were in the normal world he'd come from. For starters he didn't have a defense attorney present. "…Aren't I entitled to legal representation?"

"No. You are going to defend yourself. That's how we've always done it."

He glanced out over a sea of angry and frightened faces. "Oh great. I'm a real good…litigator."

Naturally, the prosecution had a lawyer. Assuming they were a lawyer. They were wearing a suit with a distracting polka-dot tie, doodling a sketch of a Van Gogh painting on the back of their legal documents. Carlos thought it might be Sheriff Sam, but if it was they looked very different as a lawyer. The lights started to hurt a little when he looked too long. The judge called for Sam--or Not Sam--to present their case, and they stood, clearing their throat to speak.

Well, it might have been the same voice but the accent was different.

Carlos wondered briefly if the man who ran the police station in this place currently was the former Sheriff of his Night Vale's Secret Police. It was just so hard to tell without the balaclava.

Sam's remarks were mostly recapping the events of the day when Carlos had almost died, just from a different perspective. It was interesting at first, especially hearing about their terror when the empty skyless ceiling was pulled away to reveal the world of the giants. But it quickly became uncomfortable territory, and without even meaning to his mind wandered, tuning it all out. He was almost resigned to just running through the periodic table in his head, or something equally mind-numbing.

And then he caught sight of someone in the viewing gallery, and his breath caught in his throat.

It was Cecil.

Or, to be more accurate, it was this world's Cecil. A Cecil who wore glasses instead of contacts, and had dark circles under his (only two) eyes from obvious lack of sleep. He looked older--his hair was certainly much grayer, face a little more haggard. And where Carlos' Cecil was neither short nor tall, this Cecil was tall. Not overtly so, but he could tell, even with him sitting down.

Proportionally speaking, anyway. Obviously this Cecil was much, much smaller than the other one.

He was staring very intently at Carlos, but it was a distant and distracted gaze that didn't register movement. His right hand was lightly stroking circles on his left, a small notepad gripped tightly in his fingers but as of yet writing nothing down.

Carlos snapped back to attention when he heard the words, "--And that is why we charge Carlos the giant with the malicious destruction and slaughter of our already poor, withering town; the only punishment worthy of such a malevolent crime with such large-scale damage is execution."

A bolt of fear shot through him, and he sputtered out, "But that was an _accident!"_

The whole courtroom went silent. Carlos swallowed, feeling like he had bile stuck in his throat. Nothing in his Night Vale had ever made him as frightened as being on trial for a crime he, admittedly, did commit. Nothing after his first year, anyway. He tried again to speak, briefly looking to the judge for approval.

"--Yes I did break your streets and cause havoc and years of war and--and everything…" What he wouldn't give to have Cecil's way with words right now. "But I didn't _mean_ to. I had no idea that I would cause that much damage when I jumped down! I wanted to prove you weren't dangerous! My people were _scared_ and I needed to do something to keep that psycho Tedd--"

He froze. Was there another Teddy Williams in this Night Vale?

"--Ted--Ted B-Bundy from rallying a mob of other giants to destroy all of you!"

The silence broke into flurried whispers and hushed voices. He couldn't make out what most of them were saying, his pulse thumping too hard in his ears. When the judge started to pound his gavel and shout for order, Carlos gave in to temptation and glanced back in Cecil's direction. Cecil had leaned a little to his right, listening to a young man in an NVCR T-shirt whisper something in his ear, while his eyes were still fixated on Carlos with that startling intensity from before.

This time though, he seemed to realize that he was being looked at, and quickly averted his gaze.

Finally the judge began to speak once more. "Carlos, are you making a defense that you were trying to _help_ Night Vale?"

"Well…" His voice dropped. "No. I was but I don't think I can _prove_ that. Just that…the prosecution claims my actions were malicious. But I wasn't being malicious. I was being careless. …I've hurt people, sure, but never on purpose."

More whispering. He resisted the urge to compare the situation to stepping on Legos as his defense. Frankly he didn't know if the thoughtful expression on the judge's face was good or not. There were no jurors. He would assume in this scenario that this was the man who decided on his verdict rather than just the sentencing, but sometimes assuming things led to trouble.

"What a crock!" Sam shouted out rather suddenly, gesturing wildly in Carlos' direction. "Are we really gonna let this _monster_ get away with everything he's done just because he says he _didn't mean it?"_

The crack of the judge's gavel was starting to hurt his ears. "Enough!"

"I mean if I actually meant to--" Carlos spoke through the daggers that Sam was glaring, trying to just look neutral. Clinical. Like a good scientist, instead of one driven half-insane by an amazingly bizarre town and not minding it one bit. "If I actually meant to then why would I stop with jumping on the street? I'd probably kick a few buildings down."

There was a collective gasp in the courtroom, and he amended, "But I _didn't."_

"This is highly irregular. No one's ever claimed negligence of this scale." Carlos bit back the reminder that he was several times taller than their buildings at the time. The judge lightly pulled at his beard. "We'll have to discuss this with the council, Sam. Frankly, Carlos, we were expecting your defense to be to claim you weren't the giant in question. So our case was set up to prove _that_."

"I still say it doesn't matter," Sam grumbled, going back to doodling on their legal papers.

"I declare a short recess, to figure this matter out. Court will reconvene in half an hour."

 

* * *

 

 

Carlos managed to persuade his guard escort to let him stretch his legs while they were waiting for the trial to resume. Most of the gallery were either chattering away in the hallways or trying to get drinks and snacks. It was possible that this was the most (harmless) excitement they'd had in a long time. Many of them looked at him as he was walking through, the stares varied in tone. At best, he felt like a subject being studied.

Much like when he'd first arrived in Night Vale, really.

All the people gathered around the vending machine scattered when he approached to get a coffee. It took a few moments of rifling through his pockets and wallet before he realized that he had no cash on his person at all.

"Dammit."

Someone cleared their throat behind him. Carlos turned, surprised to see this Night Vale's Cecil standing there, shyly hiding behind his tiny notebook.

He had to remind himself not to talk like he already knew who this was. "Hey. Uh….Did you want to use the machine?"

Cecil's expression made it clear that this was not why he'd sidled up behind Carlos, but after a panicked moment he pulled a couple dollars out of his wallet and got a black coffee. Which he then handed over.

"--Oh. Thank you." Cecil smiled a little oddly at him, watching him sip. Carlos did not clarify he preferred it with cream. That would be rude and unnecessary. After confirming that the gift was well received, Cecil bought a coffee for himself. …Looking at him up close, it was very clear he needed one.

This Cecil had a very different atmosphere about him. Carlos remembered when he'd first met his Cecil--how he'd taken his hand in an almost scarily firm grip and looked him right in the eyes when introducing himself, slipping a business card into his hand. This one stared at his coffee and said, far less exuberantly, "I'm Cecil. --Cecil Palmer."

Carlos forced a look of pleased surprise on his face, as though this was new information.   "Cecil Palmer? I listened to your show. --In my cell."

Cecil's eyebrows shot up on his forehead, evidently not expecting the conversation to begin on that route. "You--listened? Whu…Why?" Probably thinking about the low, worshipful tones that he'd used when talking about his arrival. "I mean, uh--did--did you like it?"

"I did." In reality, this Cecil was a stranger. Carlos had no reason to think that he was exactly like his own Cecil in every way. He could already tell from appearance that he wasn't. But he was having a very hard time _not_ behaving like he was, the very sight of him making him break out in a grin. Despite the circumstances. "Although I didn't get to hear the whole thing. My guard didn't care for me listening. Out of curiosity--what happens when you do the weather?"

Cecil cocked an eyebrow at him. "…I…do the weather?"

"No no no, I mean…" He briefly considered how to phrase the question without sounding like a lunatic. "I mean does music play? What exactly do you say?"

" _Music_?" Cecil scoffed, looking away. Briefly scratching the side of his nose in a way that made Carlos ache for home. "…No, I give a report on the weather. That's why it's called _the weather_. It's an AM program, I don't play music."

" _Fascinating_." He was probably coming across like a weirdo anyway, but it was so interesting, the differences.

"Are weather reports different in your terrifying giant community?" With a start Carlos remembered how he looked to this Cecil, as the man in question turned back with a gleam in his eyes. "Do you listen to FM stations up there? Do you play music that controls the winds and storms?"

"Ah, no."

"We must seem so primitive to you."

"No, no." Carlos waved, chuckling. "I'm just…I'm a scientist."

"I know."

"It's my job to study things. This place is…different than what I'm used to and I find it interesting, that’s all." He did not explain how similar it was.

"Mm. You find us interesting." Cecil was finishing off his coffee, starting to frown under his thin-rimmed glasses.

"…What's wrong? --You came over to tell me something, right?" Before he'd started interrogating him about the weather segment. "What was it?"

"You make me…uneasy." Cecil's voice lowered, leaning in until their faces were only an inch away from each other. "You carry this…strange air around you. Your bright smile, your lovely hair…that's not even going into your connection to the…incident that happened several years ago. Which you did _not_ deny. You make me feel that something is going to change."

In spite of himself Carlos was enraptured, barely able to manage whispering, "Do I?"

"Oh yes. I feel that your arrival in this little, abandoned town is some…terrible omen. Nothing beautiful ever comes to this godforsaken place without awful calamity soon following. Whether you are found guilty or not, no good can come from keeping you here like this."

"Would you rather I go?"

The question made Cecil pull back, mercifully lessening the strong desire Carlos had to kiss him and make him stutter. He looked confused. Not by the question--and perhaps this was just wishful thinking--but by the answer that didn't make it past his lips. Perhaps the first thing he'd thought was "No".

A heavy hand clapped on Carlos' shoulder. The guard. "Time to head back. The trial's about to commence."

 

* * *

 

 

There was less fuss than Carlos was expecting when they all piled back into the court room. Cecil was back in his spot, doing his best not to look at Carlos, and Sam was angrily making origami frogs out of the much abused court papers. The judge was the last to enter, frowning in thought as he looked over to the defendant's box.

"I have discussed this matter with all members of the City Council present today, and we have decided that we need more time to investigate into this angle that you have presented before preparing a proper prosecution."

Carlos wasn't sure if he could believe what he was hearing. "You--what do you mean?"

"We will reconvene on another day, a week from now"

"You mean I don't get to go home _now?_ " That really shouldn't be the first thing on his mind, but all he could think about was how he told Cecil he'd be fine, and he'd be right back after running some tests on the house, and it had been at least two days since then. He couldn't even call him to let him know where he'd been, because they'd taken his cellphone.

Sam had graduated from daggers to broadswords in the glare directed Carlos' way, but said nothing.

" _No_." The judge looked at him like he was some errant child. "You will not be going anywhere until you have been properly tried for your crimes against Night Vale. Much as you might dislike spending your nights in a cell. Be grateful you're getting a trial at all."

" _Uuuugh…_ " Maybe he could talk the sheriff into handing him his phone before then.

"Without further ado, then, court is dismissed!" The judge cracked his gavel one more time, and then got up to leave. Carlos waited where he was for the guard to come over, lightly rubbing his temples to clear a mild headache. It wasn't like it was a horrible prospect. This place really was interesting--how many opportunities did he have to explore an alternate reality like this one? Much less an alternate reality that was somehow neatly inserted into his own reality. It just would have been nice to have it on his own terms.

The gallery quickly shuffled out, the stands empty save for two people. As the guard put his hand on Carlos' arm he saw Cecil mutter something to his intern, who soon left. And then Cecil approached him.

"It would be--" Cecil's voice started off assertive and firm, and it almost physically hurt when Carlos turning to look at him caused him to choke and lower the volume. "It would be very good for my show to have an--interview with you. If you don't mind me accompanying you on your walk back."

Carlos gave him a smile that he knew made his Cecil's knees weaken (and was rewarded with this other Cecil swallowing air), and said, "I can't promise to be very quotable but I'd love to have some friendly company for a change."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a couple notes on the conceits of the fic--basically it's an AU, with the premise being that the tiny city remained there long enough for Carlos to somehow end up in it, rather than it just vanishing after the sky falling arc. It was also mostly written when I had no knowledge of what was in the novels, and even now I haven't read them yet. From what I do know a lot of it, especially anything relating to the desert otherworld, is probably AU as well (inasmuch as a lot of Night Vale fics tend to clash with actual canon once it's better revealed). I'm sure it's not a big deal (I certainly don't mind it when I'm a reader) but that kind of stuff does tend to bother me a little in my own work, so thought I'd say something as a disclaimer.


	4. Deliberation

Carlos had shown great interest in the fact that Night Vale had a clock tower. Or rather, upon seeing it on the way back to jail he had said something like, "It's visible! And it stays in one place?", which Cecil didn't understand. Had he had any experience with an invisible, teleporting clock tower?

No one generally went up into its workings, and so it was a very good place to be when you wanted to be alone. When you didn't want anyone to hear you speaking to a voice on a two-way radio that you'd found deposited haphazardly outside your door late one night. Or at least, the time that Cecil had decided was night, as the rumbling up above them was less frequent then.

Cecil swallowed, slowly rotating the volume dial. There was just static at first, and he picked up the microphone and cautiously spoke into it. "Hello?" Kevin had said that he would be able to call at all times in the day, but he also knew now that he had his own radio show to run. Their schedules seemed to be in sync, but then he was certain Kevin didn't spend his whole day sitting by his radio. Cecil didn't.

Sure enough, the first voice he heard in reply was not Kevin, but a woman.

"As I live and breathe! Is that you, Cecil? The _correct_ Cecil?"

He briefly glanced at a dusty mirror that was leaning against the wall nearby. "I'm the only Cecil there is, Lauren."

"…Oh now don't be like that. There's probably plenty of Cecils out there in the world."

"And how many of them would be on this channel?"

There was a moment of silence where he imagined she was attempting to purse her lips through her wide smile, black eyes narrowing. It was strange. The last time he'd seen her she was enormous. He could barely understand her, speaking in her booming giant voice, but he had seen her face well enough. Like most of the people in town he didn't care for her, or any of the other Strex executives who had dropped by afterwards to speak to Pamela Winchell, who'd communicated on behalf of the town with a megaphone while standing up on a very tall platform.

" _I was under some misconceptions last time we spoke,"_ Kevin had said when Cecil had next made contact using this radio. " _About you, and your relationship spatially with me. Terribly sorry about the confusion, friend! But I think I'm up to speed now."_

He had not clarified much yet, only explaining that Desert Bluffs had been taken over by the giants of Strexcorp once upon a time, but that the company was quite dead now. That had led to their financial collapse (and it was there that Cecil breathed a sigh of relief at the word _financial_ ), and their mass migration into the desert otherworld. Lauren Mallard had arrived some time later, no longer a giant. Furthermore, while they were in the future relative to his Night Vale in the original Desert Bluffs, the desert otherworld was prone to massive time distortion. It was possible that this was why they could communicate concurrently as they did now. Though Kevin had hesitated and paused frequently in his explanation, so he didn't seem too sure.

" _Who knows? I sure don't!"_

Thinking about it all made Cecil's head hurt, and even now he was sure there was a lot more to understand. He wasn't a scientist. Steve had been doing a lot of reading about complicated subjects like astrophysics and quantum mechanics before he'd disappeared. Maybe if he was still around he'd be able to explain it, like he'd tried to explain the gridlines in the ceiling.

"What is it that you want to say, Cecil?" Lauren's chipper voice cut in, breaking his concentration.

"I want to talk to Kevin. …I can't sleep."

She tutted, and he grumbled a little in irritation. "Kevin is a busy man, Cecil. You can't expect him to always be around when you want to chat. You know, I'm perfectly capable of conveying any messages or _information_ you might want to send him, so-- _ck_."

A chill went down Cecil's back. He heard delighted humming, and Lauren coughing in the background. And then a bright, welcoming, "What a lovely surprise, Cecil! I'm so pleased to hear from you again!"

"…Hello, Kevin."

The knowledge that Kevin, like all of Desert Bluffs, had been warped by Strexcorp had cooled the unflinching trust that Cecil had in him. Night Vale had allied with the corporation out of a desire to rid themselves of a mutual enemy, but the too-wide smiles and demented Smiling God worship hadn't exactly inspired good faith in them.

"What brings this on? I believe I heard you mention you couldn't sleep?"

"There was, um. A protest today, about the memorial statue that we have in town square." Provoked by recent events, of course. They had been standing there when Cecil went in to the trial, and a few of them had remained on his way back home.

Kevin's voice hit an even higher pitch, like a schoolgirl who just heard some juicy gossip. "Oooh, I didn't know you had a _memorial statue_ in town square. And a controversial one at that. Do tell!"

"Well, it's carved in the shape of a tennis shoe. The one belonging to the giant who--to-to Carlos." His throat was dry at the very mention of the name. Seeing him in person hadn't evaporated any of his feelings at all. Only intensified them. "The protest was done by those who feel that the statue elevates him rather than…just remembering the damage."

"Considering you still worship Huntokar the _Destroyer_ I would think that you wouldn't mind a statue that did both."

Cecil wanted to object in defense of his faith, but he'd been having incredibly similar thoughts lately. He just shrugged, _hmm_ -ing. Then added, eyes on his own shoes, "I was hoping you could tell me more about him this time. …Since you know him." And because he was too intimidated to talk to him properly himself at the moment.

"Poor Cecil. It's not good to fixate on someone you won't meet for a while. …Though I can tell you a little bit. First off, point of clarity, Carlos isn't a giant. Though he appears as one to you. He is an _outsider_ in their community. He doesn't _belong_ there. When he…comes to Night Vale, he is human sized."

Cecil swallowed. He didn't clarify that Carlos, indeed human-sized, had already come to Night Vale. Albeit differently than Kevin had said initially--they were still not free. Not even remotely close. "He doesn't…spontaneously become a giant again after visiting, does he?"

For at a few seconds there was just the sound of laughter on the other end. And then, "No Cecil, no. --What, are you worried he's going to explode your living room?"

The thought of Carlos in his living room threw him. "N-no, no, that's not--

"I've been around _real_ giants, Cecil. They're actually quite pleasant. We got along very well until they were…scared off. --Surely such things would boggle your mind. --I would love to show it all to you!"

"--Carlos. Carlos, Kevin."

"Oh right, right. …Well, I suppose it is an easier subject than your god's _betrayal_ of you. --Listen, Carlos is nothing to be afraid of, Cecil, when you two do finally meet. He's really quite adorable. If a tad _irresponsible_. But what scientist isn't?" Kevin chortled. "Why, I remember once when I dropped by he--"

"Kevin?" Lauren's voice was dim, clearly not near the microphone, but unmistakable in that awful, fake cheer that she had. "I don't mean to cut in on your charming little conversation but there's a, uh, _situation_ that needs your attention."

"Oh Lauren you _beast_ you can't handle it yourself while I talk to my friend?"

Cecil did not correct Kevin that he did not consider them actual friends. "That's alright, Kevin. I don't want to keep you busy, you've given me something to--something to think about. …Still not sure I'll be able to sleep, but that's alright."

"You know what always helps me when I'm sleep deprived? **Working.** " Kevin tutted lightly. "I'd do more than wander aimlessly, Cecil. Be productive. Your _little_ town needs it. Just as Desert Bluffs needs me."

"…I'll take that under advisement." Strexcorp's slogan came to mind, and he briefly shuddered. "Goodbye, Kevin. …Lauren."

"Bye bye!" And the radio shut down with a soft click.

The whir of the gears seemed to move in time with the crack of Cecil's joints as he stood, stretching. His brain felt baked. Like some of that "desert otherworld" was making its way across the radio waves and into his head.

He didn't know what Kevin was to him, really. He wasn't entirely a confidant--sometimes the way Kevin would react to new information would get Cecil suspicious, like he'd let something slip that he wasn't supposed to. He wasn't really a source of information either; he tended to duck a lot of questions with gab, and the answers he did provide were incomplete.

Still though. It was nice having someone to talk to again.

He didn't wear a watch, but he could tell the time by puzzling it out with the back of the clock face. Still a few hours until the sun came up. …Metaphorically speaking.

The statue was littered with garbage and graffiti by angry protesters when he ambled his way towards it in the park. By the time Cecil was done and shuffling home, the space was clean again.


	5. The Invitation

It was an uncomfortable amount of paperwork signing Carlos out of his prison cell the next day. Not to mention all the arguing that he'd done over bail ("High flight risk? Where exactly is he going to escape to? _We live in an abandoned, skyless wasteland_ "). Perhaps just as difficult was maintaining his composure when actually brought to the cell, seeing Carlos perk up in surprise and again make that odd, quickly suppressed flash of recognition at the sight of his face.

"You're responsible for any damage or distress he inflicts upon the town while he's out, Cecil."

"Yeah I hardly think he's liable to do anything when he isn't over five hundred feet tall," Cecil grumbled, scribbling his signature on the form. The keys jangled as the guard unlocked the cell door, and Carlos slipped out, unsure but smiling.

Cecil waited until they were outside, and not within the hearing range of the police, before explaining himself. "I didn't think it was right that you spend all your time in a cell. …I mean we so rarely get visitors at all, even if they're…well. On trial for crimes against the city."

_I find you utterly bewitching and I want to see you in this strange new mortal form as much as possible,_ he did not say.

"That's very sweet of you, Cecil."

The naked familiarity of the sentence, as though they were old friends, sent a chill down Cecil's spine that he didn't find entirely unpleasant. He pushed past it. "We'll have to walk, as there is no gasoline for our cars, but the town isn't…terribly large. Where would you like to go? We could pick up some lunch, if you like? Most places should be open, although Tourniquet's staff chose right now as their nighttime so that's off limits, but even if they didn't…"

"That's alright. --We can pick up a hot dog in the park? Um." Carlos inexplicably winced. "--If there's a hot dog stand in the park. Purely guessing."

"There is." Cecil resisted the urge to hold his hand. But he wasn't sure if his compromise, tugging Carlos on the sleeve, was really much better. "My treat. …There's something there that maybe you should see, anyway."

 

* * *

 

 

"Wow, that's uh. Certainly my shoe." Carlos rapped the bronze statue of his foot experimentally with his free hand, the one not carrying a hot dog laden with black olives and feta cheese and sauerkraut, and Cecil was stunned briefly by his brazenness. "That's…nice. --Weird, kind of. But then weird is my life now, so…"

"Lots of people had uploaded photos of it to Instagram." Cecil added helpfully (he hoped anyway). He was unfortunately a little distracted trying to take care of a drop of mustard that had fallen on his tie. "So there were a lot of references for them to go off of. --That was before you flooded our streets with your blood, of course."

Carlos gave him an odd look--or perhaps it was a normal look from him, but Cecil had so little time to get used to his expressions. He was not angry, not defensive. Almost…amused? "Okay but that part wasn't really my fault."

"I didn't say it was." Cecil cleared his throat, looking over Carlos' front as though to see evidence of the injuries he'd sustained years ago through his shirt. And then found himself looking long enough that Carlos actually leaned down to catch his eyes again. Heat rose to his cheeks and he added quickly, "--You interrupted our military parade. Those were…well when we set them off in the sky there's normally nothing there for them to hit."

" _Oh_." Evidently no one had explained that detail to him. "…So this whole mess was just one…awful accident."

A lot of the walk up to this point had been questions. Strangely mundane ones at that. "Can people go in the dog park?", "How many members of City Council do you have?", "What are your librarians like?". Now though it was silence.

Eventually Cecil shuffled closer to him, clearing his throat. "I'm sorry. Maybe it was tactless of me to bring you here, I mean having the thing put up in the first place was a pretty unpopular move--"

"No no no, it's fine." He smiled again, and Cecil felt vaguely condescended to, but then how could one protest being condescended to by a god? "I'm just thinking aloud, don't mind me." And he took another bite of his hot dog, feta crumbs falling out of his mouth as he spoke. "--On another topic, do you think I could, uh, get a look at the interior of your clocktower?"

The clocktower. His radio. Kevin. "No. That's, um, off limits."

"Oh." If Carlos noted the redness in his face from his bald-faced lie, he didn't remark on it. "That's okay. --It definitely works, though, right? I mean it's a functioning clock? Gears and everything?"

"It would be a massive waste of municipal funds if it wasn’t a functioning clock, Carlos." Eager to change the subject, he tugged his sleeve again to start leading him back towards their downtown. "Anything else you'd want to see? --I mean it, anything. Let it never be said Night Vale is a bad host to outsiders. --Human-sized outsiders."

Even if Night Vale was lost and dying.

A strange look came into Carlos' eyes, glasses reflecting somewhat the light of the streetlamps around them. "Actually I--I would love to see the radio station where you work, Cecil."

"The radio station?" That catches him off guard. "It's nothing really exciting. Just a standard radio station. --Actually we're a little behind the times, the Change happened a week before remodeling."

"But you work there." As though that itself made it special. Cecil's breath caught. Carlos seemed to realize the incongruity in his statement, and hastily added, "--I'm uh, _very_ into radio. I'd be really honored to see it."

Well. Radio waves were a part of science, weren't they? And Carlos said he was a scientist. Perhaps in some way there was some…overlap. "…Alright. --I suppose that's not a bad place to go. I can certainly guarantee you entrance." He coughed, smoothing his voice. "This way."

Carlos continued to chatter as they made their way through town, commenting on mundanities like there being no one with multiple heads, and how interesting that was. Perhaps the world of giants was frightening and strange like that. His enthusiasm eased the pressure off of Cecil to constantly feel like a host, which was nice. And it allowed him time to think. Kevin had said that Carlos was an outsider to his people, to the giants.

Maybe he liked it in Night Vale. Maybe he was less scared. He certainly seemed…happy. Relaxed, as though he belonged there. Despite all the odd remarks.

But then again, Cecil remembered with a brief scowl, he was also at risk of being executed. Something that seemed less fair with every passing minute in his company.

Couldn't forget that.

The station was a little removed from the rest of downtown, but not by much. The walk wasn't long. Maybe for someone who was used to having cars, but not for Cecil. He fumbled a little with his pass when they got inside, flashing it for their security guard. This earned a "Huh" from Carlos as well, and he glanced over at him. Trying to look more the part of a tour guide now.

"Station Management tends to be pretty strict about visitors. You're lucky they're out today."

Carlos looked inexplicably interested again. "Station Management. What are they like?"

"Um." Cecil thought for a moment. "Intimidating and demanding. They're the reason we have such a high turnover rate for the intern position. --I mean, I don't like to sling mud, they're doing what's best for the station, but sometimes they do an awful lot of shouting for really minor stuff. And one of them is constantly calling me "son" but I'm pretty sure he's only, like, five years older than I am."

And then Carlos was laughing and Cecil had no idea what he'd said that was so funny but he didn't want that sound to ever end.

There were few people in right now--the next few hours was just pre-recorded music from the same CDs they'd been playing for the past several years, cycled through to keep it from being too repetitive for their listeners. The interns that _were_ there were all new hires. Which Cecil supposed was alright. He wasn't sure how to explain the whole thing to the ones that knew him well enough to feel comfortable asking why he was escorting public enemy number 1 through their station.

As it was, they received just a couple waves. No interrogations. No prying.

For the actual tour, Cecil put on his best radio voice when talking about what each room was. The break room, with some leftover coffee sitting in the pot and snacks in the fridge. The meeting room, with a scrawled context-less note at the far end of the table that read "DUE TODAY!!!".  It was all the most ordinary stuff in the world, but Carlos continued to look surprised. Mutter things to himself under his breath. It was disconcerting but also strangely flattering. Like there was something interesting about their lives instead of being just…goldfish with their scales silvered, floating at the top of the fishbowl but not yet realizing that they were dead.

For some reason Carlos had asked to see the men's bathroom, too. Cecil had simply assumed that he'd wanted to use the facilities, but he'd just taken a quick look around, frowned, and then pulled back out to see more of the station.

Eventually there wasn't anywhere else but the broadcasting booth that Cecil worked in. His radio voice hitched a little there. It felt more personal. It wasn’t used exclusively by him, of course, but he was the only one who'd really bothered to decorate the space, especially after Leonard left the station. It didn't help that Carlos seemed to take the most interest in this room specifically, almost as though his focus was not on the radio itself but on Cecil. It made him feel warm in his stomach.

"Amazing. Hardly anything's different but the whole room is so much calmer…" Carlos muttered, tapping the microphone (though it wasn't on) and inspecting the "On Air" light.

"Yes, it is a, uh…standard radio station. --A little old. We never got to upgrade. I don't know if your giants have one--"

"--We do--"

"--I'm sure it's more advanced than ours."

"I'm not sure advanced is the word." Carlos gave another one of those mysterious looks, before letting out a little gasp of glee and pointing to a childishly drawn picture of a spiny, three-eyed purple cat that was taped to the console. "Janice drew that?"

"--My niece, yes." It was information that he could have easily gotten from looking at her scrawled name in the corner, but the way he said it gave off the impression that he already knew who Janice was. Did he spy on them while he was a giant? Did he just _know_ things? …Or was Cecil being overly paranoid again? "She drew that when she was six. We named him Khoshekh."

When Carlos turned to look at him he was grinning so brightly the whole room seemed to light up. "That's _adorable_."

Cecil chuckled, looking away, unable to handle the glow. "Well, if there was a cat like that in real life I imagine it'd be a little frightening. But you know. Kids. Still coming to grips with the confines of our wide and terrible universe."

An odd quality came into Carlos' smile, though he made no comment. "Do you have a sister or brother?"

"Both. I mean--I did have a brother. He was…out of town, when the Change happened. I don't know what became of him. Abby--my sister, Janice's mom--she's still around though."

"Oh." Carlos' expression dropped slightly. "I'm sorry. --I didn't mean to bring up any bad memories."

"You're a scientist, right? That's what a scientist does." Well, maybe that was more like what a psychologist did, but he found he didn't mind much. "I was closer to my brother-in-law than my actual brother, anyway."

"You were?" Cecil had to stop from his idle perusing of his workplace to look over at the absolute amazement that entered Carlos' voice at that. "You were close with--wait _. Was?"_

…Now it was too personal. _Now_ it hurt. He frowned at how suddenly and unexpectedly Carlos had hit a raw nerve after striking so many that were deadened, looking away and wrinkling his nose to keep any other expression from making its way onto his face. He certainly wasn't going to cry in front of him. He was _not._

"I didn't…I mean he wasn't…When I…?"

"--No." He didn't mean it to sound so curt. He opened his mouth to soften the pithy reply and instead said, "I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"Okay." Carlos still looked stricken, wringing his hands. "--I mean it wasn't during the war, right? No one from--the giant's side of things--"

" _No_ , I just said I didn't--" Cecil ran his fingers through his hair, brow knitting even further. He wanted to explain. He did not want Carlos to feel guilty for something that he didn't do. But his voice came out harsh again. "Steve joined an exploration team to look for answers and never came back. …So, I would rather not--"

"Well then he might still be alive? I mean if you don't know what happened to him." The hopefulness in his expression made Cecil sick in his throat. "I mean he could be--"

"No."

"Cecil, just because you don't know something doesn't mean--"

"I do know. He's dead." Maybe he just didn't have any tact. Maybe giants were born with that part of their brain missing. It would certainly explain some things.

"Okay but what if you tried some method of contacting--"

" _Carlos_."

Carlos started to raise his voice. "I just want to know if--"

" _Why?"_ A little flame of anger lit inside his chest, Cecil too surprised to quell it. He slammed his fist on the counter, rattling some tapes that had been carelessly stacked to the left of his hand. "Why do you need to know? Why is it so important to you? --None of any of this bothered you before, why must you keep _digging_ into the _one_ topic that **_hurts me_**?"

And, mercifully, Carlos stopped.

When he spoke next his voice was soft. "I'm not…I'm not trying to hurt you. I just…" He sighed, and Cecil was amazed to see absolutely all of the remaining bubbling, thoughtless inquisitiveness melt completely away. Behind it all there was something tired. _Probably ancient and all-knowing weariness_ , his mind offered, unhelpfully. Or maybe it was just guilt. "...It kills me to see you so sad. …I'm not used to--that is I--what I'm trying to say is I--" Eventually he gave up and said quietly, "I'm sorry."

The silence rested heavily on both their shoulders in the soundproofed booth. Cecil looked at Janice's picture and let his eyes mist just a little bit. Just enough to blur out the fangs and spikes.

Eventually he couldn't stand it anymore, straightening his back again and turning around. The other man--the beautiful one with no tact--had his gaze fixed on his shoes. His bangs were hanging over his face in a very disheveled fashion. Like he was a wilting ficus. …It was cute.

"…You don't need to say you're sorry. It wasn't your fault." His heart thudded painfully when Carlos suddenly looked up at him, and he took a moment to remember what it was he was planning to say. "A-- …After all, you didn't take our sky away. You didn't bring us here. Huntokar did."

"Huntokar? …Oh, right, that's--who you worship. --Maybe some time you could tell me about that. --If you want."

Cecil allowed a small smile on his lips. "I didn't take you for a theologian, Mr. Scientist."

The smile had the desired effect--the weariness seemed to slowly tumble off of Carlos' shoulders, and he stood up a bit straighter again. "I often find in my line of work that gods aren't as far removed from science as people desperately try to convince themselves."

"I tend to think the same." The warmth was coming back into the room. Cecil looked away for a moment, clearing his throat and speaking a little less softly. "--I was thinking."

"Oh yeah? I do that a lot too."

Damn him for being so charming. "It seems…inappropriate that you be forced to sleep on a dirty cot in a cold cell the entire week. Since I'm responsible for you right now anyway, I thought…you could come stay at my place?" When he didn't get an immediate response he added, "--My couch unfolds into a bed."

There was another look on Carlos' face that he couldn't decipher. For a good long moment Cecil was horrified that he'd overstepped, prepared to rescind the offer entirely. And then finally, "Sure. --Yeah, sounds way better than sleeping on a cot."

If he didn't know any better, he could have sworn that he heard Carlos add under his breath, "I was wanting to see if your place adheres to the laws of physics here anyway."

 

* * *

 

 

Later that night Cecil lay tangled in his sheets, gripping his arms so hard that he was leaving fingermarks, and trying to think of something to fall asleep to. Something other than the fact that Carlos, perfect and beautiful, was sleeping out there in his living room, hair tousled over his neck and chest moving up and down in the steady rhythm of his breathing.

He could not.


	6. Beyond the Bloody Basement is a Bloody Town

With no watch, no hunger, no thirst, and no phone, Steve had no way to keep track of how long he'd been wandering in the desert since coming out of that awful house in that awful, awful town. No matter how many times he walked away from it, trying to escape the buildings streaked with blood and gore, he would end up walking right back towards it again.

It wasn't like Steve was a stranger to blood. Blood rituals, blood sacrifices, raw meat accessories--these were normal parts of living in Night Vale. But there was a kind of psychotic fanaticism in having _that much_ that gave him such awful vibes. Plus it was unhygienic.

Each time he came back, on the far horizon the town was larger. First it had been a handful of houses, a roller coaster, and a radio station. Then it was like a little village, more homes, and the steel skeletons of a few buildings in progress. Then it had been a city, full of office spaces, entertainment, suburbs. And then it had been a bigger city--but covered entirely in blood. Tough there had been blood in every stage of its growth.

Finally, feeling nebulous and detached, like some ancient thing, divorced from purpose and stranded away from all that he knew and loved, Steve had chosen to wander in among the smiling denizens.

"Take me to your leader," he'd quoted from an old Sci-Fi movie that he'd watched with Abby while they were dating forever ago.

They took him to Kevin.

He was familiar, painfully so, but it was hard to place him behind that horrifyingly wide smile, coal-black eyes and bloodstained sweater vest. And, of course, the third eye. Kevin had greeted Steve as though they were long lost friends, full name and everything. "It's so nice to see you back, Steve Carlsberg! Did my friendly helpers here kidnap you again by accident?"

The cheer did seem a little strained. Less so when he explained that he came here on behalf of Night Vale to find out why their sky was missing, and that despite Kevin looking like someone he might have known a millennia ago, they had never met before.

Then Kevin had clapped his hands and burbled, "Oh! You're _that_ Steve Carlsberg. I suppose the goatee should have tipped me off."

And then they put him in jail without any explanation.

So once more he found himself in a place where it was impossible to tell time. The blood that coated the cell and most of the walls never even congealed. His stay in there probably wasn't very long, but then, he wasn't wearing a watch.

Eventually the monotony of scrawling letters in the blood on the walls broke to the sound of people screaming outside, and then suddenly he was being dragged from his cell again. There were rips in the air that his feet almost slipped through. Truthfully, in spite of his own struggling, he was grateful for the support of his smiling captors.

They did not take him to the radio station this time, but rather a house that was closely nearby it. Or at least, what looked like a house on the outside but was really a series of offices with framed pictures of human teeth and fresh blood splatters everywhere. For a brief period Steve had thought that perhaps someone else was in charge, and that was the reason for his release. But they dragged him into the third office to the right, and sitting in there was Kevin and some woman that he didn't recognize in the slightest.

To his warped perception of time, everything since entering this strange place to this moment right now was starting to feel like a few hours. But from the way that Kevin looked--still grinning but more tired, bloody, and disheveled than he had last seen him--it must have been longer.

"I have time for you now!" he declared, gesturing for Steve to sit. Or rather, gesturing for his woman assistant to push him into a chair. She then proceeded to start tying him _to_ the chair when he moved to get up again. "So sorry about the wait. Things have been _crazy_ around here lately."

Steve's voice felt cracked and dusty when he first opened his mouth to speak. "That's--uh. That's okay. I um. I'm having trouble remembering what I came here for."

"Something about _Night Vale_ , I think you said. Yes?"

"Yeah, I'm--from Night Vale. Huntokar stole our sky…" He shook his head, trying to clear it out. He didn't know if that even meant anything here. "But where am I now? What is this place?"

"You're in Desert Bluffs Too." Kevin rapped on the desk a little, the noise his fist made a bit squishier than was likely intended. "This little desert community is like none other in this desolate wasteland! Literally, it's the only town that exists here. Although we did model it off of the original Desert Bluffs. So it is like _that_ community, you understand. But it's…better."

"Desert Bluffs…" They'd heard about Desert Bluffs, in Night Vale. He didn't recall anything about all this blood. That was the sort of thing you mentioned in travel brochures.

"So let's talk, Steve!" Unconcerned with Steve's surprise, Kevin grinned wide, posture perfect and head tilted just a little to the side. "I want to know how you found us out here."

Steve's eyes shot around at the framed portraits of human teeth hanging in the office. And he remembered that chair propped up under the basement door handle. "--I was just walking for a while, that's all. I wandered out past city limits and eventually I found this place."

Kevin's sing-song tone made his heart shudder. "Now now. I think you're not telling me everything, Steve. Don't you think so, Lauren?"

The woman beside him chirped, "I think so, Kevin!"

"It's not nice to keep things from people, is it Lauren?"

"Absolutely not, Kevin."

They smiled but they were on edge. Something was wrong.

Something other than the blood and teeth and bones and coal black eyes.

Steve cleared his throat. "That's all I know, honest. If I knew how I got here, don't you think I'd try to get back home through there?"

"Maybe you haven't had a chance to." Kevin's brow lowered. "You were in our Relaxation Center for quite a while."

Before Steve could attempt another explanation, the radio crackled. Everyone in the room gave a start, and while he was trying to figure out what was going on, Lauren moved to shove a gag over his mouth.

Coming through the radio was a voice that he never thought he'd hear again.

"Kevin? …I know this is later than I usually call, but are you there?"

Cecil Palmer.

Steve tried to speak through his gag. He was unsuccessful.

Kevin ignored him, taking the microphone for the radio in his hand. "Of course! I'm always here when you call." It sounded like Cecil was about to disagree, but Kevin cut in, a bit louder, "And even if I'm not, I have no way of knowing, therefore I _choose_ to believe that you call only when it is convenient, and not when it is _in_ convenient."

"…Sure."  Cecil sighed rather loudly into the microphone. "Listen, there's a…there's something I need to get clear. --I want you to be honest. Okay? …Do you really know what happens to Night Vale in the future? …How we get our sky back?"

"I don't see what needs clearing up, Cecil. I told you that already." Kevin laughed, scratching at little at his teeth. "Of course I know. But I can't tell you. That would cause a tear in the time-space--"

"Kevin."

Cecil's voice was cold, and Kevin stopped talking. His mouth frozen in its rictus grin.

"I've thought ever since we started speaking that you weren't telling me the whole truth." The smile thawed. Kevin readjusted a little in his seat, something that wasn't anger but could be mistaken for it brimming in the air around him. "But I didn't doubt that what you did choose to tell me was true. Now, though…now it feels like you're lying to me. …I don't think you're in the future at all."

"Cecil. _Cecil_ , good friend of mine." Kevin's voice was low and smooth, almost a purr against the microphone. The irony of this conversation happening so soon after he chided Steve for lying seemed to be lost on him. "I'm just…hesitant to give you the straight facts right now, that's all. I don't know if you can handle it. You've been through so _much_ already."

"Don't lie to me, Kevin." The authoritative tone didn't last long though, breaking with a, "You're the only one I can trust."

"I know, I know." The smile seemed to waver, but Kevin forced it back up and spoke soothingly. "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to upset you. That's the _last_ thing I want for _anyone_. Believe me. There are just…circumstances the knowledge of which will tear your brain asunder and make you question everything that you believe to be reality."

In that, he did look to be sincere.

"…I understand." Cecil sounded so weary. So exhausted. It had been bad before Steve left, but not to this degree, not to where it was leaking through his voice. "…There are some things in this dark universe that it's better not to know."   

"Oh yes. Or, well. Better for _you_ not to know. My soul has already been scorched by the light of the truth. It's an ugly burden, Cecil."

"Yeah." That almost seemed to be the end of it, but then he added, "I guess I have no right to complain, I've been…hiding something from you, too."

At that, Kevin perked up with interest. "Oh?"

"A few days ago…we had a visitor in town. He won't say how he got here, but…It's Carlos, Kevin. Carlos is here." Cecil's voice was suffused with awe, even as Kevin grit so hard on his teeth that Steve thought they might crack. "I don't know how he shrank down to human size but he's _here_. He's…" Here Cecil's voice grew reverently quiet. "…he's in my house right now."

Steve was not privy to who this "Carlos" was, but from the way that Kevin was reacting, it was someone they both knew. Another smiling denizen? But then he couldn't imagine Cecil talking so fondly about him if he was.

"You have…Carlos there?"

"It isn't like you said it would be, Kevin. We're still skyless. And yet here he is. He's--on trial."

"He's on _trial_? What is he on trial for? For--oh. Oh yes that's right I almost forgot your first…introduction to him."

Steve attempted some muffled speech into his gag once more. All he got in response was Lauren putting a finger to her open lips.

"He says it was an accident. …I think I am inclined to believe him. I didn't see him that day, I was…hiding in the station when it happened. But I remember seeing the blood afterwards. …There was so much blood. It took weeks to clean up, and the entire area had to be redone because it was so bloodstained. I wondered--what could lose so much blood that it soaked the ground for blocks and--and still survive? ...If he was trying to hurt us on purpose, perhaps he would have been better prepared. Wore armor? I don't know."

Steve noted with some measure of disgust that Kevin had started drooling. Though right as he noticed this, Kevin briefly closed his lips over his teeth to swallow. "Interesting."

"What do I do?" Cecil pressed, oblivious to any slight change in tone.

"How long is he being kept in your town? You said he's on trial. How long until this trial is resolved?"

"A…a week. Less than that, actually. But about that long. --I want to talk to him. Really talk to him. He asks so many questions, and I'm not always able to…answer them. I haven't been able to work up the courage to ask him anything myself."

"Well you don't have to take advantage of his visit _now_. He's there for almost a week? Plenty of time to decide what to do, what to say." Kevin's voice rose in pitch. "In the meantime though, you want some friendly advice? --Have fun together! This man is your responsibility, don't keep him cooped up in your house. Get some ice cream. You do have ice cream over there, don’t you Cecil?"

"…We do have ice cream, yes."

"There you go! Go bowling. Feel his hair. Feel his _perfect_ , **_beautiful_** hair in your fingers. You know you want to."

Cecil _hmmed_ noncommittally on his end.

"Your time together is going to be short, Cecil. Enjoy it while you can. It sounds like you've already taken the first step. All you have to do is feel comfortable around him. Then it will be much easier to give voice to all those wretched thoughts keeping you up at night."

"It's not that it--it's not that I don't think that makes sense, it's just…that alone makes me nervous." There was the sudden, very loud sound of the gongs in a clock tower-- _Night Vale's_ clock tower--going off. Steve was unable to cover his ears like his captors, and winced in pain as it crackled through the microphone. Cecil waited until it was over to continue. "…I should--I should go, Kevin. …I haven't been sleeping, and I know what you said but I'm going to be very sick in the morning if I don't at least try."

"Oh very well, Cecil. I have some issues on the back burner I need to tend to as well anyway. I hope you are well rested and ready to face a new day!"

"…Yeah."

When the radio was off, Kevin sighed wistfully, holding his head in his hands. "Those crazy kids…" Then he turned his gaze back to Steve, noticing the glare that had started to form on his face. "What? You're making such an… **ugly** expression." Reaching over to slip the gag off him.

There were a lot of things for him to say. Questions, mostly. But one thing in particular rose to the front of his mind, responsible for his scowl, and he only said, "Don't do that. --Don't do that to Cecil. He might act like he's made of stone but he's very vulnerable." It had been ages since he'd seen him but he still felt protective of his brother-in-law. "--You're pushing him towards someone he doesn't know that well and this Carlos is--is going to hurt him when he finds out that he's--"

" _What?_ In love with him? Carlos won't have a problem with that." Kevin waved his hand dismissively. "He's in love with Cecil too. Or. Hmm. Not _your_ Cecil. Oooh, this _might_ be awkward." And then something very unpleasant entered his smile. He straightened up, and glanced towards Lauren. "Get someone ready to head over there again. Bring Carlos back here."

Steve blinked. "--What?"

"That'll solve all our problems." Kevin turned his radiant smile at Steve. "Steve will show you the way. I'm sure he will, he's so _helpful_."

Steve blanched. "Well I uh--I wouldn't want to get anyone's hopes up. I'm really--not a good guide. I lost my whole team on the way up here. Really, you might--you might get lost."

"Oh, don't worry," Lauren chortled, advancing towards him. "I'm very good at helping people reach their full productive potential."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just for information's sake, when Kevin mentions Steve getting kidnapped, he's referencing something that happened in my "So Charming It Hurts" fic collection.


	7. A Phone Call Home

Time didn't work in this Night Vale, but Carlos didn't know if that was a function of existing in the same plane as the one he called home where time _also_ did not work, or if it was because nobody knew what actual time it was without a sun or moon or stars to go off of.

When he woke in the morning it was dark, with the light of streetlamps coming in patchily through the living room blinds. The clock on the coffee table said something later than it felt, later than he normally got up, and somewhere he could swear he heard a rooster crowing as though it was the break of dawn. Deciding not to push it, Carlos scrambled from the couch bed, cracking his back a little as he stretched, and looked in the kitchen for Cecil. He was used to being woken by screaming and pounding on the counter if Cecil was making coffee, but he imagined that with the emerging pattern here, this one had a coffeemaker.

The point was moot. There was no Cecil in the kitchen. Carlos sighed and started to root through the cabinets for something to fix himself, when the light flutter of paper caught his attention.

Sitting on the counter was his cellphone, and a note in a familiar, spiky cursive. _I remembered you mentioned that you wanted your cellphone back, so I pulled some strings with the chief and got it for you. I don't know if you will be able to call anyone outside the city, but you're welcome to try (although I would rather you not call your giant friends to destroy us all). I have to do my show but I'll be back soon. Please stay inside the house or I'll get in trouble. -C_

And then, written a little lower on the paper, _C as in Cecil, your name has a C in it too_

_Weird_

_That we have that in common, I mean_

_~~You're not weird~~ You're very weird actually_

He was chuckling to himself before he was even done reading it, folding the note up and slipping it into his pocket. The phone he touched a bit more hesitantly. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to make the call--the size difference aside, there was a chance that calling Cecil would just be in effect dialing a number that already existed in this Night Vale. But then, there were a lot of places he shouldn’t have been able to call when in the desert otherworld, so perhaps he would be lucky here.

He swallowed and punched in Cecil's cell number, keeping an eye on the front door in case he should be interrupted.

Heartbeat jacking up with each ring, soon enough there was a _click_ and then a hesitant voice. "Hello?"

"Cecil? Hey, um, this might sound weird but--"

" _Carlos!_ " And there was that familiar excitement, that joyous tone that had been so sorely missing from his life these last few days. Albeit, tinged with desperation. "Where have you been!? I thought at first that you might have been trapped in the desert otherworld again but then you never astrally projected yourself to see me. I've been worried _sick_ , why haven't you called!? _Do you know how long it's been!?"_

Correction. Tinged with desperation and anger. Carlos winced "--Yes, yes, I know. I'm so sorry, they took my phone when I got arrested. I'm not in the desert otherworld--Cecil, you won't believe where I am right now."

"When you got arrested? --Carlos are you in some sort of danger? Have you been _kidnapped?"_

Talking to him, the world felt right again. And yet, at the same time, it was also just the tiniest bit more frustrating. If only he'd been able to call sooner. "Take a deep breath, honey. I'm fine. I'm not making this call under duress. And I'm not in any…imminent danger, anyway."

"Where are you?"

"Are you sitting down?"

" _Car_ los."

He smiled in spite of himself. "First you have to promise not to broadcast it on the radio. --You're not broadcasting right now, are you?"

"I have an hour before the show starts. --Why? Why can't I tell people? The whole town's been worrying about you too, you know. Especially your scientists, they've been wailing and trying to climb on top of your lab, wearing nothing but mourning loincloths and green paint, as is the custom of scientists who have lost their team leader."

"They've…? --Never mind that now, Cecil. Just promise."

Cecil heaved a big, childish huff and Carlos almost cried because he just wanted to be home and hold his husband again. "Okay fine. I promise."

"I'm in the tiny city under the pin retrieval area of lane--"

Cecil's yelp was almost supersonic, and Carlos had to move the phone away from his ear or risk it bleeding. "What are you doing down there _!? Carlos they are going to **kill you.**_ "

"Cecil, calm down. I'm fine."

_"Don't you tell me to calm down! Those people are homicidal maniacs bent on destroying everything Night Vale holds dear!_ The fact that they're too tiny to really, um, do anything doesn't really change the--When you say in the tiny city do you mean you've been buried alive or--"

"I'm very very tiny right now, Cecil." Carlos didn't hear anything on Cecil's end for a few seconds, and briefly worried that he'd said something weird even by his standards. "Listen, I'm being put on trial right now for crushing their town square and starting the war with the surface world. The whole almost killing me thing was a big misunderstand--"

"Do you think I could fit you in my pocket?"

That threw him. "…What?"

"--Ooh! I could carry you to work! Little tiny Carlos to take everywhere with me!"

"Cecil I don't think you're listening."

"I _am_ listening, my miniature sweetheart. They're cruelly putting you on trial for something that was _totally deserved_ , in my opinion." He could dimly hear the shuffling of papers on the other side. "How do we get you home? I mean, you are in town, yes, but--the proper size. --Did the house lead you there? Do they have a house on that side?"

"Yeah but it's a house that exists. It looks like it shouldn't--it's not near any other houses in the area, the housing development it's in was cancelled, and it would make more sense for it to not exist than the reverse. But it's there. …Honestly it's less interesting than the house on your end. I haven't had a chance to go back in, I'm sort of--under arrest until the trial is over."

"Under arrest? --Do they have you in chains? Oh my poor, poor Carlos--"

"No, no, I'm not in any chains. I told you, I'm fine."

"…Are you in a cell?"

"Not, well, not anymore, no."

"Is there anyone watching you right now?"

"Well…no…"

"…So why don't you sneak out and go to the house?"

"Well it--it's not that simple."

He heard anger--or perhaps that was just a stressed-out interpretation of concern--begin to slowly creep back into Cecil's voice. "Why not? --You're not getting caught up with investigating things down there, are you?"

"--Of course not! There's not even a lab down here, and--and anyway I wouldn't do that to you again, Cecil."

No response.

"Cecil." Carlos sighed. "Look, it'll…it'll all make sense when I'm able to explain it properly, I'm still wrapping my head around some of it myself. But someone pulled a lot of strings to get me out of jail so I don't have to stay there between court sessions and…I don't want him to get in trouble."

"Some man is keeping you in his house?"

"--It's not like that." Although even saying that, it was sort of like that. But only because that someone was literally Cecil. "I'm sorry you're worried, and I know it must be frustrating that I'm not telling you everything, but once I have it all sorted in my head I _promise_ you'll be the first one to know. And then, after that, the rest of Night Vale."

Again silence on the other side.

"Please say you trust me, Cecil."

Nothing for a moment. And then, finally, a quiet and vulnerable, "I trust you." A pause. And then, "It's the rest of the world I don’t trust."

"Oh Ceece." He allowed some of the choking ocean of affection within him to slip into his voice, leaning against the counter. "Don't worry. As a favor to me. Okay?"

"…Okay. …I'm sorry, it's just--Carlos, when they hurt you, that…that was the most scared I've ever been. And this whole thing is just bringing up all these…bad feelings. Ugh. --I know you're doing what you think is best, I just wish that aligned more often with what was best for _you._ …Please be safe. Please come home soon."

Carlos' shoulders relaxed. He hadn't even realized he'd been tensing them. "I will. The next part of the trial's in a few days." He did not add that if he should fail to be found innocent they would be executing him. They could cross that bridge when they got to it. "Then I'll be back, and I won't be messing with that house again. At least, not without a rope tied around my waist so it doesn’t spirit me away somewhere."

"Are you going to call me again before then?"

"I will. I just have to make sure I'm not being watched when I do."

Cecil barked out a laugh. "Their security must not be so great if they don't have hidden operatives watching you 24/7."

That gave him pause for just a moment. He'd assumed of course that this Night Vale simply didn't have a Secret Police. But it was possible that they did, and were simply just better at hiding it than his was. "--I've got to go. I'll talk to you soon, Cecil."

"I love you."

"I love you too. Bye."

There was a lot of science to consider on the effects of shrinking on a cellular phone, but now wasn't the time for all of that. He adjusted his glasses and slipped his phone into his pocket, resuming his search for something to eat and some coffee. Of course, it was entirely possible this Cecil took his coffee at the station, and thus there wouldn't be any to be found here.

That reminded him.

Carlos knew from his own time and place that Cecil's radio was in his living room. The one in this tiny city was identical in every way, save for that the color of its wood wasn't constantly changing. It was a very advanced model masquerading as a Victrola, which was frankly the cutest thing he'd seen in a while.

He went over to it and twisted the volume dial, other Cecil's voice coming in slightly tinny and slow. "…the rumbling is expected to grow louder and more frequent over the next five hours, during which time the wind will pick up again. Be sure to wear at least a light jacket if you're going out today-slash-tonight. Aside from that, it's….clear skies. Forever. Or perhaps I should clarify, clear _of_ skies. Because we have none. This has been: the weather."

"I'll be damned," Carlos whispered.


	8. Watching

In one Night Vale, Cecil checked his phone every two hours. For several days he was pleasantly surprised to find that there were texts and calls at precisely the same times each day, rather than scattered and inconsistent across several weeks. In between these calls his heart would tangle itself into painful little knots near his throat, but during them it would unspool into his stomach.

In that Night Vale, reality shifted and pulled into itself, collapsing and restructuring almost daily. There were earthquakes every three hours, but no one felt them. There were angels lined up to get free samples of a new water chestnut ice cream at the White Sand ice cream parlor, asking several people in line with them for ten dollars. Pamela Winchell was giving another emergency press release on how terribly her date had gone last night, and several scientists were trying to understand, without the leadership they were accustomed to, why one of their number had spontaneously grown a beak and horns.

"Do you think maybe you could just push them back in?" the afflicted party attempted to say, though it came out as harried squawking.

And everyone acknowledged how strange it was. It had been at least a couple weeks since anyone had drunken with the intention of forgetting something they had seen, unless that something was bitter heartbreak.

She had thought the shame would kill her. But it did not.

In another Night Vale, the only other Night Vale that existed discrete and unbroken, Cecil was with Carlos in the dog park. Carlos had a loaf of bread with him, and was telling a scientifically accurate joke. Cecil was laughing. It had been a very long time since Cecil had laughed. The local police were taking witness statements for a tragedy that had happened years ago, yet everyone remembered in vivid detail. Asking them all sorts of questions. "What kind of movements did he make", "Did he say anything", "Did he look apologetic at the time".

And then, settling down at the local diner to rest their feet, one turned to his partner and said, "Buckets and buckets of his blood on our streets and no one thought to freaking take a sample of it for analysis?"

"Well we're not _scientists_."

Elsewhere, in a desert otherworld, reality was having a hiccup. Lauren was screaming, and Lauren was shoving a sock into her mouth, and Kevin was speaking soothingly into his microphone that there was nothing wrong, no reason to panic, and that everyone should just focus on finishing the death pit at the new highschool. A Steve Carlsberg with a goatee was taking advantage of the chaos to dig his way out of Desert Bluff Too's detention center with a plastic spork.

The buildings were being made but the work was rushed and slapdash, the sign of distracted minds. People talked to themselves too much, saw with eyes that were not meant for a wider picture, and wondered aloud, "Oh yeah, what was that old sun like anyway? With the setting and stuff."

She made an attempt to tell someone, but the clean-shaven Steve Carlsberg was losing at Mario Kart with his daughter the following night, and stayed inside his home the entire time.

It was not a matter of great importance to anyone. And yet it was a matter of great importance to her. It was a matter of the most importance. So she tried to see it all, tried to experience it as it was happening in real time and not shirk away, no matter how uncomfortable it was.

Cecil suggested to Carlos for about the third time that he simply skip the trial and come home, and it could be like that one movie they saw on Netflix with the outlaws and clones of Greta Garbo. He would harbor him like a fugitive and protect him from anyone they sent after him, and Carlos said that wasn't fair.

Cecil suggested to Carlos that they buy more clothes for him to wear so he didn't have to keep reusing the same flannel and lab coat after showering, but Carlos insisted that he didn't want to be a bother having him pay for more things, and would simply borrow Cecil's clothes because he knew they would fit fine. This was also not fair. But for different reasons.

Kevin suggested they start converting some people instead of just hiding them in whatever closet they could find. This was the least fair of all, she thought.

It occurred to her, observing each in turn, waiting far less patiently than she had ever waited, watching bubbles and bursts of static in an intricate fabric that had been reduced to threads long ago, that maybe she should take up knitting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of an intermission chapter I suppose, apologies that it's so short.


	9. Friendly and Not At All Self-Interested Advice

He was relatively sure that Carlos was comfortably asleep before heading out to the clock tower. They'd been up a little later than he was used to, going over strategies and evidence and who was going to testify. Now the important thing was just making sure that Carlos was well rested for speaking on his own behalf.

Cecil was never well-rested. So he wasn't overly concerned about himself.

It wasn't really a good idea to go out right now, at this point, but there was a building anxiety coiled under his stomach that made it hard to breathe. He certainly couldn't talk about his feelings with Carlos. Who knew how he would take them? Eager to go home as he was.

Still, he spent maybe twenty minutes just staring at the radio in a funk before dialing in. He hadn't gotten a response the last two nights he'd tried to call. "Kevin? I want to talk. …Are you--"

"--There? Oh yes, Cecil. You have impeccable timing. Like snatching a bullet from its trajectory between your thumb and forefinger."

Kevin's voice was delighted, but also very clearly hoarse. If Cecil wasn't such a selfish bastard he might have asked why that was. "I still don't know what to do about Carlos. --I've been giving him tours of the town. He finds everything…fascinating."

"Well yes, he is a scientist. That is what they tend to do. Have you given him a notebook like I suggested?"

"I have, but--"

"Isn't his writing so _neat_? Especially for someone who wasn't allowed to use _pens_ for the last few years."

Cecil swallowed a frustrated grumble and scratched his scalp a little harder than he meant to. "--Yes it is, but that's not what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Mmm, you better get to the point, then, Cecil. I do have a premium on time right now."

"Right, okay." He still hesitated on saying it, sighing into the microphone. "…The trial is tomorrow."

Evidently Lauren was listening in, because he heard her say, " _Already_? But we haven't been able to--"

Her voice cut off in a fit of coughing, and Kevin chimed in with a, "--Wellll, I hope that goes well! He must be nervous."

"Yeah, yeah he is. …I'm nervous too. I'm not sure I'm…going to sit in the trial this time."

"But aren't life and death stakes exciting? --A little too exciting for some people, I suppose."

"Well I'm also nervous about…" Cecil paused. He felt…ashamed. Unbearably ashamed, of his selfishness. "I mean if he--if he gets executed then that would be terrible."

"Oh absolutely."

"I think having gotten to know him, he, it, it would be a great tragedy to have him just killed for something that was all a misunderstanding. But I'm also not looking forward to--I mean if he's found innocent, he's…going to go home."

Kevin made a noise, but Cecil didn't know how to interpret it. Disapproval, he assumed. It was a horribly self-centered thing to think about someone who was trapped in a world so alien, even if he did tend to exclaim his fascination every so often at random parts of it.

Not waiting for more of a response, Cecil cleared his throat and leaned a little on the radio. At least he couldn't see Kevin's face. "I know I shouldn't feel this way. I should be glad for him. But it’s been so long since I was…excited about someone. --I've never met anyone so fascinating in my life. With still so many mysteries left…I probably sound terrible."

"No." Kevin's tone was hard to get through the tinny speakers, but it didn't sound accusatory. More thoughtful. "No, it's perfectly understandable. I mean you've been spending a lot of time with him. I myself know how…how quickly one can take to his teeth."

His teeth weren’t the issue, but all the same Cecil felt a little bit of relief. "I'm glad you--you get it. …It's like getting to know a god and then having them walk out on your life. I just--I need some advice for after he…you know. To make it easier."

"Well he can't go _home_." Lauren said in the background. She made another pained noise. Maybe Kevin had elbowed her.

"--What Lauren means is that it's clear he means a great deal to you. You should talk about your feelings with him before it's too late. I know what I'm talking about."

"What good could that achieve?" In his mind's eye he imagined what it would be like. Conjured a scenario that wouldn't lead to his heart getting smashed. Then he shook his head, gripping the microphone tighter. "It'll just make things awkward.  He's a free spirit, he shouldn't be cooped in this lifeless town. I shouldn't be guilting him into that."

"Don't let him get away, Cecil. You have to keep him there after the trial is over. You can't let him go home."

"But I don't want to force him to--"

" ** _Keep him there, Cecil."_**

Cecil swallowed. The radio crackled in a fit of static, and then he heard light, almost embarrassed giggling.

"You want _answers_ , don't you? If he leaves you, how are you going to get them? Think about it. He's a scientist. He's been watching you and your people. If nothing else it's worth keeping him around for all your sakes. Don't you think?"

"No, I…No. No there are some things that you just need to be…resigned to. You wouldn't get that, Kevin. Your home is thriving. You aren’t being punished."

There was a long silence--long enough that he thought maybe the radio had cut out, and then Kevin's voice dropped to something that could potentially be described as husky. By someone who had never heard a husky voice, anyway. "…You're so _good_ , Cecil. …It's really very sweet of you. Sometimes I wish I could still be that…good. Right, Lauren?"

"Absolutely, Kevin. We _all_ do."

"But we all lose our innocence at some point. All human beings are selfish. Yes, even Carlos. All people reach that time in their lives where they have to make the choice between what they _want_ and what's best for someone else. That choice is coming for you, Cecil. And like all other people who reach that point, you're going to choose what you want or _suffer_ for not doing so."

Cecil spoke more firmly, trying to put a frown into his voice as though to spite the eternal smile in Kevin's. "I'm not going to treat him like some prisoner just to satisfy my own curiosity. He doesn't deserve that."

"But there's something else you want him to satisfy, isn't there?"

Sweat began to accumulate on his back. "I d-I don't--that isn't--one does not simply--"

" _Carpe diem,_ Cecil. I'm not suggesting you tie him down in your basement where no one can hear him scream or anything _._ …Maybe just ask him out for a celebratory beverage when the time comes. See what happens. Work that voice of yours. I suspect he has a thing for it. Even delaying his departure for…oh, say, one night…well that would make it easier on you, wouldn't it?"

His face burned. "--Kevin I don't think that's--that's appropriate, I've only known him for a week."

"You asked for my advice. I gave you my advice."

"Okay. Okay, I uh--" The clocktower was about to ring out the new hour, and he shook his head. "Thank you for the advice, Kevin. I have to go, I'm sorry."

"-- ** _If you let him go home you're going to regret it Ceci_** _\--_ "

Cecil was trembling when he shut off the radio, clutching his knees and digging his nails into his skin. His thoughts were too discordant to sort quickly, and when the clock chimed they scattered all over again.


	10. Time Is Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I worry it's a little bit of a copout to not depict the actual trial, but then courtroom drama's not really my cup of tea (and it's not the point of this chapter anyway).

It was a little contradictory how deeply Carlos slept that he didn't wake when Cecil snuck back into the house, but how easy it was to wake him so early in the morning (or what Cecil thought was morning) with just a light touch.

Carlos stirred in alarm before seeming to remember where he was. "Do I have to get up now?" he mumbled, arm thrown over his eyes and falling back on the thin mattress. "Is it time for the trial?"

"No. No that's a few hours from now." It was a struggle to keep his voice clear. Carlos' shirt--really Cecil's shirt, on Carlo's torso--was heavily rumpled, exposing his stomach a little bit. "I need you up early for a different reason, come on.  Get around."

"Are you taking me somewhere?" Carlos slowly got up, still clearly groggy and blinking heavily. "Are we getting more ice cream?"

"No, we are not getting ice cream. I'll explain after you get around." Cecil grabbed Carlos' glasses and slipped them onto his face for him.

Carlos smiled, lightly touching the rim. "Thanks."

A small blush rose to Cecil's cheeks, and he turned around to keep it from showing. "I'll--be waiting outside when you're ready. Take however long you need."

 

* * *

 

 

To Cecil's delight, under his lab coat Carlos had changed back into the stylish flannel that he was wearing the day he first showed up in town. He was carrying dry toast with him when he came out to greet him, and he smiled that perfect smile.

"--Today is going to go well. I mean I--I want it to go well." Referring to the trial, of course.

Carlos nodded sagely. "I'm prepared. A scientist is always prepared."

How Cecil dearly wished he could be a scientist. "A radio host is…usually prepared. --That's what this is about. Trying to--to tip things in your favor." He lifted a small, stone-filled bag in his hand demonstrably. He would not think about last night. Last night was just a hazy, uncomfortable memory. "For that we'll need to head to the yard out back. --I mean we could do it here but open spaces with dirt is really more preferred."

Carlos crunched on his toast and followed him into the yard, wordlessly observing as Cecil began to dump out the contents of his bag onto the earth before piping up, "What exactly are we doing, Cecil?"

"We're going to make a blood offering to Huntokar to pray for your innocence verdict."

Carlos looked at him sharply at that. "Whose blood?"

The idea of a blood offering itself did not seem unusual to him--it was to most outsiders. Perhaps it was something the giants did too. Cecil popped open a switchblade from his pocket. "My blood."

"--Do you _need_ to get hurt for this to work?"

Cecil glanced over at him. Carlos looked…concerned. "--Well, we used to use chickens, but. We don't have any left." He bent down to adjust the ritual bloodstones in a proper circle, before dabbing some rubbing alcohol on his palm. No sense getting himself infected in the process. "--I'm used to it by now. I barely even feel it."

"Oh." And then, a short moment later a slightly louder, " _Oh_. So you use bloodstones for that."

"Yes." Cecil primed the blade over his palm. "Huntokar requires blood sacrifice. They are the vessel through which she receives our offering."

"Does she also require soft meat crowns?"

It was easy at this point to get more used to Carlo's penchant for simply Knowing things that he Should Not Know, like it was one of his abilities as some sort of divine being (even if he and Kevin and most of the rest of Night Vale routinely insisted that he wasn't), so Cecil did not give him any strange looks at that. "Yes. Though, obviously that's more for ceremonial stuff. And we're running out of soft meats. …I'm not sure she's paying attention anymore anyway. --But! We can try."

It was a quick slice, careful not to dig too deep but careful not to be too shallow to bleed, either. He leaned down and dripped the blood along each stone, muttering incantations under his breath. A light began to sparkle inside them as he spoke, and he moved to make a small circle of blood in the center. Dimly he was aware of Carlos behind him, speaking some sort of remark about the ritual. His pulse was too loud to hear it. The stones were lapping up the blood, shining even brighter, and when they were dry again Cecil stood stock straight, putting his hands on Carlos' luscious hair.

" _Oh great Huntokar the Merciful, the Just, and the Destroyer."_

"Wh--what happened to your eyes--"

" _We pray for the successful journey of Carlos through this tempestuous court battle. May you look into his heart and not find him wanting of righteousness. May he find safety in the truth, and let him escape the terrible claws of our justice system. Amen."_

The pulse in his ears grew louder, and louder. And then, quite suddenly, the light dripped out of the bloodstones. Cecil slowly removed his hands from Carlos' head, pulling away to apply some hydrogen peroxide and wrap his palm.

"--That ought to do it. …Sorry my chant was so lame, it's been a while since I last prayed and I didn't always pay attention in bible club..."

"I thought it was fine." Carlos said quickly, running his fingers through his hair, as though checking for blood. "It was…slightly different than I was expecting."

The hydrogen peroxide stung, and Cecil winced. "What were you expecting?"

"--Nothing. I uh--just talking out loud. --Thank you."

"Think nothing of it." Somehow all silences between them had begun to grow a little unbearable, and he blurted out rather suddenly, "--I don't think I'll be sitting in on your trial this time."

"No?" Carlos had finished inspecting his hair, frowning in--perhaps disappointment. But it was hard to tell with him pushing his large glasses up on his face. "Don't think you can take the excitement? --No, that's alright." Carlos actually physically put his hand on Cecil's shoulder when he started to try and explain, and his skin tingled at the contact underneath his shirt. "When they let me out you'll know it went okay. --I understand you wanting to um. Sit out of the action."

He sighed. More reminding himself that breathing was a thing he could do. "…Yeah. --You are very understanding."

"You also look _really exhausted_. Frankly I think maybe you should take a nap."

Perceptive too. "Ha. Uh. Yeah. Story of my life. Who can sleep when there's work to do, right?"

The hand on his shoulder squeezed. Air sat dead in his lungs again. "Get some rest."

He couldn't formulate a response until Carlos released him, glancing in the general direction of town. And even then it was only, "Okay."

"I should get going. Don't want to be late to the courthouse. --I'll see you later today, Cecil."

Cecil only nodded, turning around to try and covertly start gulping breath, moving to go back inside the house. It was unlikely he would be able to relax enough to sleep, but he could be a gentleman and attempt to.

And then Carlos spoke up again when he was almost at the door.

"Wait. I uh--I know what I said, but uh…In case it…in case it _doesn't_ work out." Cecil turned back to look in the direction of his voice. He was scratching the back of his head, eyes on the ground. "Listen, I…I never thought of myself as someone who was…as a…--As a giant, before I met…you. I always thought of myself as normal…normal sized. --Maybe a little short, even. …And I just want to say that even if I keep saying I'm _not_ , I do appreciate…having someone who views me like that. So…so…"

He turned fully to face him, and Carlos choked briefly. There was something behind the words but he couldn't parse it. They felt intended for someone else, but also very much directed at him.

"--So, in case I do get executed, thank you. …I just want to have said that."

And in a few short strides Carlos was there, and Cecil's pulse was quickening again, and he had no time to react before he felt his lips on his cheek. And then they were gone, and he was smiling like he'd done something wrong, and Cecil could say nothing but a stuttered out, "You're welcome."

 

* * *

 

 

Cecil did sleep, to his own credit. Not for very long--just an hour. But it was something at least. He spent a great deal of time staring at the clock after that, wondering if he could fit in a call to someone to talk to. _Not_ Kevin. …Maybe Abby. For a long time now he'd been getting information on her secondhand from Janice, just seeing his sister when picking up and dropping off her daughter.

In the end, he called no one. Carlos called him. Or texted, really.

"free now, u sleeping?"

After a pause--pretending to have been woken from his nap by the buzzer on his phone, Cecil texted back, "not anymore. went ok?"

"yeah u wanna hook up?"

He probably did not mean "hook up" the way Cecil's trembling fingers immediately took it. "yes".

Carlos responded with a text that was shaped like a scientifically accurate deinonychus prancing around wearing a feather boa. Cecil had no idea what it meant but it made his heart soar.

 

* * *

 

 

It felt like the two of them were drunk, but in reality they'd only had a glass of champagne each. It was more a high from relief than anything.

Carlos was telling him about the trial, giggling a little bit as he explained each turn it had taken, the way he'd handled himself in the face of Lawyer Sam's prosecution. And his laughter had been terribly infectious, so then Cecil had started giggling too.

He was taking mental notes during the entire explanation, of course. He had to make a report about how the trial went in the morning, based on both this and whatever testimony he could obtain from intern Leland, who he'd sent in his stead.

There was less fear inside him than he'd been expecting. Perhaps it was just the anticipation that had been unbearable. Now it was only as though…all the tension had been broken. Even worrying about Carlos leaving seemed distant and unimportant. Whatever would happen would happen. Like it always did.

It helped, perhaps, that Carlos had accepted his invitation to celebrate his victory instead of immediately leaving. Like the connection wasn't one-sided.

It _wasn't_ one-sided.

Carlos leaned on him a little as Cecil unlocked the door to his place, glasses just a little bit crooked. Carlos shied from touch with everyone that they had met, but with him it seemed almost like it wasn't an issue, even if Cecil himself remained withdrawn on initiating physical contact. Several times over the week he had said things that were actually pretty flirtatious, and grinned brightly when Cecil had blushed. Several times he had moved to hold his hand, or smooth his hair. Once he'd even expressed an interest in seeing Cecil's family, though Cecil had declined, nervous about what Abby would say.

At first he'd thought maybe Carlos innocently didn't understand the effect he had on him, but now he felt…giddy with the thought that he did.

"Oh god, I've never seen Sam that angry…" Carlos was hiccupping now a little, wiping his bangs out of his face, still beaming. "You don't think I'm gonna get some police officers after me, do you?"

"Sam and the sheriff don't really get along, so I'm sure you won't." Carlos' mouthed an "Oh right", and Cecil experimentally moved some of that hair back behind his ear. No flinching away. "Besides, even if they did, you'd be safe in here. I'm a model citizen."

"Oh. --Well, I meant when I leave."

Cecil's heart settled uncomfortably in his throat, and he struggled to keep his voice smooth. "So you do know how to get back?"

"Yeah. --Or at least I think I do. If not then I'm in a lot of trouble, but--well, as long as I reproduce the circumstances that brought me here but, well, in reverse…" The radiant smile faltered, but only slightly. "--No need to worry about that, Cecil."

"Oh no. No I wasn't worried." Or rather, he'd been worrying about the opposite scenario. "So do you think--" He cleared his throat, looking at his hands, which were much less intimidating to look at than those wide, guileless eyes. "Do you think you'll ever come back?"

From the tone of voice the reply was in he's sure that if he was looking at Carlos' face, he'd see it fall. "Uh. I…I don't know. Not…conventionally. I mean I--I probably could. But I don't know if that'd be wise. Although I'm not sure if your Night Vale would appreciate me coming back as a giant if I came back the other way--"     

"--It's fine, Carlos. I understand. This isn't your home."

"No it's--it's more complicated than that, Cecil." Carlos' hands touched his wrists, and Cecil looked up at him quickly. "I--this past week has been…a little confusing, but--good! I really enjoyed spending time with you, and…"

"And?" He was forgetting how to breathe again.

"And I, um…"Carlos trailed off, like he'd caught a lump in his throat. He tried again. "--I just um, want to thank you for being such a--a good host. And…"

"And…?" Cecil deepened his voice. Blood flushed to Carlos' cheeks, and he cracked a smile at the sight. Nothing had changed. Nothing, not from the moment he first saw his face. The only thing that was different was seeing the same sort of _want_ in his eyes, hearing the tremor in his speech as he tried to answer.

The next words out of Carlos' mouth were muffled by Cecil's lips as he descended upon him.

It wasn't like him to do something like that, of course. To just suddenly kiss a beautiful man with no invitation or warning. It was impolite and unprofessional but the desire that had been present this whole time simply tipped into overwhelming. He slid one arm around Carlos' waist, and used the other to cup his cheek, angling his face up a little to meet him better. Cecil had long been wanting to experience perfection. Since he'd first seen it. He was not disappointed.

On his part, Carlos had seemed caught between conflicting impulses. Not pulling him closer, not pushing him away, even as Cecil slowly backed him up to the wall. Then suddenly his lips had parted with a strangled whimper, and it seemed that one impulse won out over the other, forgoing whatever it was his head was telling him. The kiss lasted for several seconds, Cecil counting each one as he worked his jaw, tasted those gleaming teeth, felt Carlos' tongue moving with his. It was not how he'd dreamed it would be. It was better. It was _glorious_.

And then he felt resistance, a hesitant and regretful nudging on his chest. Reluctantly he released Carlos' face, brow furrowing just a little.

"I--I think--" Carlos swallowed noisily, and Cecil had to suppress the urge to nibble at his throat. "--I think it still counts as cheating, even if uhm--uh--I mean I'm--I'm m-married."

"You are?" The only expression that registered on his face was mild surprise. They were still quite close to each other, and he lightly started to unbutton the collar on Carlos' flannel shirt to brush his fingertips against his collarbone. His skin was smooth and warm. "You don't wear a ring."

"I uh--I take it off when I'm doing science. So it doesn't get caught on anything or--lost. I just forgot to--to put it back on." Carlos did not yank Cecil's hand away, and so he moved in to nip at his earlobe, encouraged. "-- _Oh Cecil_ \-- _I_ \--I am still--ver-very much married, though."

"Are they an impossibly beautiful being like you?" He murmured in his ear, taking in a deep breath to smell his aftershave. Surprisingly normal, on someone like him. But pleasant.

Carlos' voice was soft as he replied, "Yes. --More than me. He doesn't know it."

Cecil pulled back to look at him, to analyze his face. He didn't appear to be lying. But there was a cloudiness in his eyes when he looked at Cecil. A confused and deep affection. That look had been there from the moment they first spoke in the courthouse, though presently there was a bit more lust in it. "Then why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because you're--" The answer, the truth, whatever it was, died on Carlos' tongue, and Cecil stilled a little in his movements. "I c-can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"I don't know what the consequences of that would be. I've already done too much leaping without looking, where your town is concerned."

Cecil chuckled, a low rumbling in his throat, and he saw Carlos' cheeks flush. "You mean jumping into our town square and destroying it."

"…Yeah. That."

Likelihood would dictate that Carlos' husband was one of the giants. And Cecil had no sympathy for a giant that wasn't Carlos.

"I think you like me." He pecked him on the lips again, aware that there was immorality in trying to seduce a married man all the same but too intoxicated to care. There was so little that went his way since the Change. He wanted to have at least this one thing.

Carlos pressed his palm to his chest, though more bracing than anything. His voice was so quiet it was almost hard to hear. "…I _do_ like you."

"I like you too." It felt incredible to finally admit aloud, to hear the sentiment reciprocated, and he moved in again. But there was that hand on his chest, pushing. He stopped.

 "That's why I…This would be--this would be more of that leaping without looking thing that I'm talking about." Even Carlos' nervous little chortle was perfect, adorable. Cecil squeezed his hip, resulting in an equally adorable yelp. "Ce--Cecil, it's not. Um. It isn't going to happen. I don't want to hurt my--my husband. He's--he's wonderful to me, and--I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to lead you on or anything, it's just…Oh, Cecil…"

Bemused, finally Cecil pulled back. Frankly he should have expected rejection the moment he'd first grabbed him, so all in all it shouldn't carve a pang of disappointment in his chest that ached with longing and need. He should be satisfied to have been allowed this much. And yet, looking into those rich brown eyes, he wasn't. "You love him?"

"…I do."

"And I suppose _I'm_ just--"

" _No!_ " With a small start he realized that Carlos had slipped his fingers into his. "Please don't take it the wrong way. If this was another life…we would have had something. Something amazing. Something more than just--the physical sensation of two people together."

"You can't know for certain the outcome of a hypothetical situation. We could be all wrong for each other," Cecil mumbled, somewhat childishly. Sour grapes.

"It's not hypothetical." Carlos leaned in to kiss his forehead, and his heart clenched painfully from the act. It felt…innocent and pure. Something he didn't deserve.

"I think I'm in love with you," he whispered suddenly.

Carlos--sweet Carlos--smiled at him sadly. "Yeah. I kind of figured."


	11. Leaving Night Vale

Cecil slept in the next morning. Other Cecil, that is. Carlos watched him, wanting to wake him to say goodbye but unwilling to break the peace on his face. He was curled up around one of his pillows, breath even and brow relaxed. The dark circles were gone.

He didn't know what Cecil would do, if he did wake him. Beg him to stay? See him off with resigned pain? It would be hard enough leaving things like this. Carlos told himself that he would help them, as soon as he got back to his lab. Research some way to get them their sky back. He could lead all the individual citizens through the doorway to make them big again, but then where would they go? Night Vale couldn't sustain a sudden doubling of its population. Especially with literal doubles. He still remembered the chaos that had occurred during that sandstorm where Kevin had first come to the station. And anyway, that still left their town under Lane 5.

Not to mention, fixing their situation didn't solve Other Cecil's infatuation with him. …There was no double of himself to offer to the man.

There were at least three notebooks full of observations that he'd made on this alternate Night Vale. Carlos had been careful not to write anything about Cecil in front of him--as such those notes were lacking, but he could have filled twelve books if he wanted to. Despite all that there was still so much he couldn't know. Was this a different man? Or the same one shaped by different circumstances? Different life choices?

Case in point, would his own Cecil have been as forward as this one had been last night? When he and his Cecil were first dating, he had been polite, gentlemanly--almost reserved, even, always waiting for Carlos to make the first move. Though, easily reciprocating when that first move was made. But then, Carlos had to admit to himself he'd been very cautious, and held back quite a bit back then. He spent the entire first year of Cecil's devotion rejecting his advances. And this one…well, Carlos had enjoyed watching his cheeks turn red a little too much, perhaps. Spent too long trying to get him to laugh.

He was already in love, and Cecil clearly picked up on it.

Carlos had at least stopped to write a letter to him, hopefully a more comforting one than the last goodbye letter he'd had to write. There was some explanation in it, though less than Cecil deserved. He would tell him the full truth later, once he could go back to his lab and get a handle on things. Try calling his cellphone or…writing a tiny note.

The town was quiet as Carlos slipped out of the house, a small satchel at his side with the notes he'd taken on this alternate Night Vale. It was possible he'd get arrested for having them when he got back home, but frankly that was a risk worth taking. It always was.

He of course had to stop at his statue, and at the clock tower. Taking a picture of each. There were a few people lingering about--most citizens seemed to go by an approximation of Cecil's clock, so it was still early enough that early birds and nocturnal people were the only ones up. He asked one or two to help him take a selfie next to the bronze shoe and they acquiesced.

After a bit of this though it started to feel like stalling. Eventually he started to head in the direction of the house that Existed Even If It Made More Sense For It Not To.

It wasn't a long walk. Though it felt very far removed from the town, there being no housing development there like there should be. With no sky it was dark, only illuminated by the brightness of the city lights nearby. The door was closed. He hadn't closed it when he first left but perhaps someone else had taken care of that after he'd been arrested. It was just a miracle no one lived here, so there'd be no one to intrude on.

It was when he was taking a quick glance around to make sure there was no one to witness the crossing back into his own world that he spotted the figure following him. Their posture stiff and straight, arms barely moving as they walked. A flash of white in the dim. Carlos turned fully, pulse quickening.

In front of him he saw someone that looked remarkably like John Peters, the farmer, except his eyes were pitch black and his smile was so wide it threatened to overtake his entire face.

Before Carlos could react he grabbed him by the lapels of his labcoat and plunged a syringe into his neck. Faster than should have been physically possible, his vision went dark.

 

* * *

 

 

When Carlos came to, he was tied to a chair. Poorly, at that; a little struggling could easily undo his bonds. The acrid stench of blood filled his nostrils, and red smears assaulted his vision. His satchel was gone--his heart ached at his missing notes but that wasn't really his biggest concern right then.

A familiar figure was crouched across the room in front of him, rifling through a filing cabinet with some degree of urgency, tossing papers behind him as he searched. Carlos did not need him to turn around to know who it was. And he was too awash with prickling, terrible discomfort and guilt at the sight of even the back of his head to announce the fact that he had woken up.

Eventually though he had to bite the bullet. Otherwise there would be no explanations or letting him out of the very uncomfortable chair he was sitting in. "Kevin."

Kevin whirled around, grin more of a baring of teeth in his surprise. "--Oh! Oh good. How are you feeling? You slept like the dead, you silly scientist."

Carlos chose not to object that he had been drugged. "You had someone kidnap me." His voice didn't sound suitably outraged, and he tried again. " _Why am I tied up in your office?"_

"Well it's not technically my office, it's more like a shared space--"

" _Kevin."_

"--Don't get angry! I didn't want to drag you here, but, well…you weren't answering any of my calls. Actually I'm not even sure your phone was receiving them." Kevin's smile didn't look suitably apologetic at that. Maybe just a little embarrassed. "I have every intention of returning you back to Night Vale, the one with your loved ones in it. …Eventually. There's just some work that my not-so-little-anymore town desperately needs."

"Kevin, this is exactly the kind of boundaries thing I was talking about in my letter."

"No no no! It really is a business kidnapping. Business…invitation? --Not for _personal_ reasons, as you might put it." Kevin quickly moved past his slip of the tongue, popping out a small pocket knife to cut the hastily tied rope around Carlos' arms. The knife looked remarkably like Cecil's, actually. "Sorry about this. I didn't know if you were going to wake up fighting. Sometimes that happens, you know."

Carlos had no desire to fight Kevin. Just a very strong desire to flee in the opposite direction. "I don't care what business you want me here for. I'm not helping you. With whatever it is. I'm not staying here any longer than I need to, this isn’t my _home_."

"…See, now you're going to make me unpleasant." Kevin's smile widened threateningly. "Don't make me unpleasant, Carlos. I like it when everyone gets along. I _don't_ like having to threaten sending a few agents out to completely crush Night Vale and all of the people in it."

Carlos snorted. "Night Vale's fought back a lot worse than a few smiling cultists."

"That's not the Night Vale I'm talking about."

Every ounce of defiance dripped out of Carlos' voice. "Oh."

"The Cecil over there is so much more receptive of my friendship, it's a shame he's such a downer," Kevin continued, almost conversationally. "We've spoken quite a few times. --That's how I knew you were there, actually. You know what a blabbermouth he is. He was so _desperate_ for answers. It sounds like you didn't give him hardly any. Naughty scientist, not doing your _job_."

"Don't hurt him."

Kevin laughed, high and shrill. "Carlos, I don't _want_ to hurt anyone. …Anymore. --But sometimes you have to do unpleasant things to get people to cooperate. I have to think about what's best for Desert Bluffs Too. And right now, that's you. Working for me. --It'll be just like old times!"

"It better not be." Carlos attempted a pointed glare at that, but failed. Kevin didn't seem to notice.

"So you agree, yes? In the interest of leaving those poor helpless people alone?"

There was already blood on his shoes. Carlos swallowed and nodded.

Kevin's teeth were too numerous and shined too brightly.

"Let me show you where you'll be working."

 

* * *

 

 

His old, makeshift lab was covered in blood, just like it had been when he left. None of it had even aged in that time. Or else Kevin had very dutifully replaced it with fresh blood periodically since then. Neither thought was appealing.

There were assistants--or, more like, civilians who had been roped into helping. Kevin ignored them while he explained what was going on, voice uncharacteristically low. Desert Bluffs Too had been experiencing anomalies lately--alternate timelines bubbling in at random, disrupting workflow. People were seeing doubles of themselves, sometimes in windows and sometimes actually dropping into the otherworld. These alternate people were always screaming when they appeared. Apparently they weren't as suffused with the light of the Smiling God as their otherworld counterparts.

On top of all that, the tears dumping these doubles into the otherworld didn't close after they opened. They remained, and people were getting their feet caught in them, among other things.

In spite of himself, Carlos' interest was piqued. "Something similar was happening in Night Vale recently, actually. --At least, with alternate timelines and the universe unraveling and everything…"

"Yes!" Kevin pointed at him excitedly. "Oh you're just full of wonderful observations! Yes, that's why I thought you could help me. You're witness to both. And no one knows this place better than you, with all your research. I sure don't. I wouldn't even know where to begin with all your experiments on sand. --You're the smartest person I know, Carlos."

Carlos quickly brushed past the flattery. "But what exactly do you want me to _do_ , Kevin?" He noticed a small hole in reality off in the corner--not big enough for a person, but he could see someone's eye peeking through. "I mean the situation in Night Vale was different in that it was destroying the sky. Your sky is fine! And yeah the little tears look annoying, but--"

"I want our reality to stop _tearing itself apart_ , Carlos." Kevin moved to shove a cabinet in front of the hole, barely grunting from the exertion. "I want alternate universe _downers_ to stop falling out of the sky and disrupting our work flow. Do you know how much there still is left to _do?_ We can't do that if we're constantly having to deal with these--interruptions. Having extra hands is great! Having people who keep--keep screaming and failing to get with the program, _that's not great at all."_

It was rare to hear an outburst of any kind out of Cecil's cheerful double, and Carlos found himself briefly too amazed to respond. --In conjunction with the amazement, he did feel some sympathy as well. The universe unraveling had stressed Cecil out pretty badly too. But then, the town had literally been on fire, among other things. Whereas Desert Bluffs Too didn't seem to have anything especially wrong except that non-Strex-ified doubles were showing up. "--Oh."

"What?"

"That's it…" Carlos looked thoughtful now, adjusting his glasses. Kevin's brow quirked a little. "That's why you're acting like this. You're afraid."

"I'm not afraid, Carlos." Kevin laughed, clearly affronted. "--What a ridiculous assertion. I am concerned. --Tempered of course by a good dose of productive chee--"

"You're terrified."

Kevin frowned. Carlos' words failed him at the sight.

Eventually the upward pull of his lips and flashing of teeth returned, but he was still frowning very hard. "…I appreciate your friendly interest in my emotional wellbeing, but you could not be further from the mark."

"It's okay to be afraid, Kevin." Carlos watched the horde of smiling, black-eyed office workers drag a normal looking person away from beyond the open door of the lab, frowning slightly himself at the sight. "--Don't you think though that maybe the reason why you're so upset at seeing these people is that you wish your own town could have followed the path where there was no Strexcorp?"

Kevin clapped a hand on Carlos' shoulder, and squeezed. Not enough to be painful but enough to make him wince and quickly attempt to pull away. "There is no longer any Strexcorp here, Carlos. They were just a stepping stone to something greater."

"Okay but you didn't really answer my question."

"I think you're projecting. I think you just got here from an alternate Night Vale where everything was depressing and you're assuming that I feel the same way about these people." In one smooth motion Kevin released his grip and pushed Carlos towards his lab table. "Get to work, Carlos. The answer is buried in your notes somewhere. And if not…well, I guess it's going to take longer to solve, isn't it?"

Carlos struggled to stay on his feet, a little queasy from the sudden motion surrounded by so much blood. Eventually he was stable enough to turn around, just catching Kevin striding out of the lab and slamming the door shut behind him. His assistants did not look particularly eager to help--mostly they were moving furniture here and there. And he felt bad for them, but he had no actual inclination to assign real tasks like they might have needed. With a heavy sigh, Carlos instead went over the haphazardly stacked pile of his notebooks that remained from the last time he was here.

To his surprise, they--unlike the rest of the lab--had been cleaned. Meticulously, and carefully, with some attempts to bring out the writing underneath. Most of the work he'd done was ruined, of course. At least a third of it, if not more. But it hadn't been entirely unsalvageable after all.

The thought unsettled his stomach a little bit, but ultimately it changed nothing. A couple dry heaves and then he was forcing himself into his work, taking out his battered and well-used Danger Meter and waving it over the tear that Kevin had blocked. Or rather, the cabinet in front of the tear that Kevin had blocked. Not surprisingly, it had a lower reading than the desert otherworld did.

With nothing but time, he decided to run through the sort of tests he'd done when the sky was pulling apart in Night Vale, feeling a familiar burning behind his eyes that had been normal in that awful year he'd spent here. One he hadn't even noticed until he was back home and it was gone. He had no idea how long he'd have been away from Night Vale--either one--at this point. Hopefully with the time distortions it was just a day. Maybe less. Time worked even less here than it did there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This and the next chapter were hardest for me to write, so take that as you will.


	12. Desert Bluffs Too Also

Carlos had no idea how much of this place's faulty time passed. It could have been a couple of hours. It could have been days. When there was no indication that time was going by, like hair growing or cellphone battery going down (not that it would have done much good, as Kevin had taken his away), it was impossible to know without constantly checking his watch. It was almost scary how easily he was absorbed into study, taking readings and attempting to patch the fabric of reality, each attempt less successful than the last.

It was harder to want to pursue his goal when he heard a voice through the tear, expressing horror and shock at all the blood. The owner of the eye he'd seen earlier. And then the smiling people in the lab with him dropped what they were doing and started trying to shove scalpels in and poke that eye out, Carlos desperately trying to hold them back.

He'd been elbowed pretty hard in the sternum, falling back against his desk and whacking his head, when the lab doors flew open again.

"Which one of you is Carlos?"

His head was spinning and his ears were ringing and he didn't have the presence of mind to speak up. It didn't really make a difference. The moment that the door opened his "assistants" stopped trying to stab through the tear in reality and instead turned on the man who had broken in.

The next couple of minutes passed in a sort of hazy blur of trying to keep from falling over and listening to cries of pain and hearty _thwacks_ of metal on human flesh. And then, heart thudding painfully, the sound of someone smashing a beaker on another person's head. It was entirely possible that Carlos had a concussion from hitting the desk, but as time went on he also felt it healing up.

And then, beside him, he heard, "You don't smile like one of them, so…"

It was hard to make out his rescuer with his vision still spinning, but after a moment he managed, "Steve."

"Have we met?" Steve Carlsberg helped steady him on his feet. He had a goatee. Carlos was positive that Steve had not had a goatee when he'd last seen him, and if he hadn't just revealed himself as the _other_ Steve he'd have been horrified that it was an indication of how much time had passed in Night Vale. "I mean, I've sort of gotten used to everyone here inexplicably knowing who I am, but you're clearly not like these people. Your eyes don't freak me out, for starters."

"Uuuh, no. --Forget I said that. Who are you?" He'd be much more clever about this if he wasn't still fighting a massive headache. "I mean I--you just look like a S--"

"Oh my god you're him." Steve's eyes went wide, and he took a step back. "You're the--"

"--The giant, yeah. -- _I'm_ Carlos." He held a hand out a little meekly, clearing his throat. "As you can see, I'm not large enough to be stepping on anyone today, and I really just--want to get home." His voice grew a little more desperate in pitch at that. "I really, really, _really_ want to get home."

That didn't seem to merit a response for a moment, save for a return of the handshake. It occurred to Carlos that he perhaps wasn't asking as many questions as he should, when Steve cut in suddenly. "--I think I can help, now that I've found you. I need you to follow me."

"You know a way back?" A small, uncomfortable silence ensued. And then, in a flash of remembrance, "Oh--no no, I can't leave. I uh--I haven't solved the whole--reality tearing problem."

His assistants were currently in a heap on the floor. Not that they had been particularly helpful in the first place. When he glanced back, Steve was frowning. "--He has no intention of sending you home, you know. …In case that's what he promised to get you to help him with this--whatever is going on. He smiles a lot but he's not really a nice guy, I think."

"He's just stressed out. Actually he used to be--" Though really, "nice" isn't what Carlos would have used to describe Kevin back when he'd known him, back when it had just been the two of them and an army of masked giants. "…He's not _usually_ malicious. We used to work together, sort of. But no, that's not what he told me. I mean it is but it's not what he--He said he's going to hurt Night Vale. Send some, um, more giants to attack if I don't do what he says. I think he's bluffing but I didn't want to test him."

Steve paled. "Oh. That's bad. I didn't realize that was something he might do."

"Yeah."

"--But this is good!" Steve took a step forward as though to grab Carlos by the shoulders, but thankfully he only snapped his fingers. "If that's the only leverage he has, I know what to do. It's why I came back here after I escaped. But we have to get my bag."

"What's in the bag?"

"Things."

When it became clear that Steve was not going to offer a better explanation than that, Carlos sighed and scratched his head. His hair was feeling plastered to his scalp in the heat. There was no air conditioner in the lab. "Okay, where do you think they're keeping your things?"

After a moment of thought, the other man offered, "The radio station. …Kevin talked about it on the radio once, that all contraband is kept in their break room so he can be in charge of it. …And so no one is tempted to use the break room."

"The radio station." He knew where that was. --It was very close to the office space that Kevin had initially been holding him in. And it was one of the first proper buildings in Desert Bluffs Too, one of the few he'd been around to see built. "--Alright, but we need to hurry."

 

* * *

 

 

While they ran through the town, they spoke.

"Did Cecil tell you about me? Is that how you know who I am? --I know you were there, in Night Vale. Kevin spoke to Cecil over the radio, I was sitting in during one of their conversations."

Carlos sucked in some breath. It was a perfectly plausible explanation for his knowledge. "Yeah. He--seems to miss you a lot. He told me you've been gone a few years."

"A few years?" Steve's voice seemed far away very suddenly. "It doesn't feel like just a few years."

"Yeah. …I know." In front of them they saw a small crowd, hastily putting together a house in a long line of what was likely supposed to be identical suburban homes. Carlos pulled Steve down a side street before they were noticed. "We can take a detour."

It wasn't a terribly long walk to the station from Carlos' lab--they were actually fairly close. But having to constantly duck and run and hide in other directions to avoid being seen made the trip much longer than it really needed to be. Even upon reaching it, it took some time to find a way inside, the locks being blood activated like the ones in Night Vale. Eventually, Steve had suggested Carlos see if his own blood would open the door, a tactic Carlos fervently insisted wouldn't work right up until it did.

Kevin wasn't the type for interns (aside from ill-fated Vanessa), and evidently there weren't a lot of other people he liked having in the station either. He owned it, so there was no management, and apparently he thought having someone sit around at a security desk wasn't productive enough. So there was no one to catch them as they made their way inside.

"The break room is…" Carlos racked his brain a little. It was the same floorplan as the original Desert Bluffs station. And that was the same as Cecil's station, but inverted. "It should be up here."

Steve got antsier the farther in they walked. Perhaps it had something to do with all the blood squelching under their feet. He wasn't sneaking at all, which was the method of walking that Carlos would have liked to do. "Come on. --Let's hurry up, before someone finds us."

"You know, running like that is more likely to make someone find us." He gave him a quick glance back but didn't slow down. "The break room is up there to the…right."

"Good. I'm going ahead." Steve darted down the hall.

Huffing slightly, Carlos ran to keep up.

He ran right into Kevin.

Physically, that is. The two of them slammed into each other as Kevin rounded the corner. Carlos almost choked when he saw who it was, glancing farther down the hallway where Steve had stopped running and was looking back in horror.

Kevin seemed to be oblivious to what the actual situation was, clapping his hands in what was probably genuine joy at seeing him, not the least bit winded. "--Carlos! I've been meaning to drop by, how thoughtful of you to come up here with my busy _schedule_ ~. How'd your experiments go?"

"Um. Fine." Carlos backed up a little bit, trying not to draw attention to Steve with his eyes, guiding Kevin forward. Steve had found the break room and seemed to be rummaging around in it. "--Well, no, uh, less than fine. I haven't had any success at all."

"Oh." It was hard to gauge his emotional response with that smile on, though his brows drew together slightly.

Carlos swallowed, rubbing his wrist. "Out of curiosity how long was I working? Forgot to look at the clock while I was in there."

"Oh, just a few days. Not very long at all." Kevin wagged his finger at him chidingly, relaxing again, even as Carlos felt his throat constrict. "Now Carlos, you can't expect to get a breakthrough immediately. Some things take time to figure out. As a scientist I would think you know that."

"I do--I do! I uh--I still plan to work on it." Steve was starting to creep back in their direction, finger to his lips as though he needed to remind Carlos not to say anything to indicate his presence. In his other hand he held a bag of something. Perhaps stones. "I know I need to--not give up."

"Mmm, then what are you doing in this radio station when you could still be working at the lab, Carlos?" Kevin tilted his head, looking suspicious for a moment before the glee returned. "Did you want to come see me? Did you miss me?"

"I, uh…" In spite of himself his eyes shot to Steve again. Getting closer but painfully slow. "I--yes. Yeah, I--missed you."

"Awww, you're so _sweet_." Kevin stepped forward, not seeming to mind the way that Carlos flinched and took a minor step back. "I know I've been a bit--hm-- _bossy_ , in this whole arrangement, but I do still think of you as a--as a dear _friend_ , Carlos."

"Uhm. Me--me too. Emphasis on the…friend, part."

"But I do have to wonder," Kevin took another step forward, and Carlos took another step back. "How you got out of the lab. I gave your assistants specific instructions not to let you leave until you'd solved our little problem. And I'm _pretty_ sure I locked the door on my way out."

"Oh. Well that's--a funny story." Steve was almost up behind him, adjusting the bag so that it rested over his wrist. Primed and ready. "You're gonna laugh when you hear it."

Kevin giggled coquettishly, even as his smile stretched horizontally. He had more canines than he should. "I do like to laugh."

Almost there.

Steve slowly moved his arm back, a look of careful concentration on his face.

Before Carlos even had time to blink Kevin had whirled around with his pocket knife at the ready, voice loud and exuberant. "And just what do you think you're doing, _Steve Carlsberg?_ You don't spend your childhood in the Boy Scouts without learning how to catch someone _sneaking up on you_."

Steve flailed back in shock, eyes wide and fixed on the knife. Carlos did not consider himself a fighting man--in fact in all his years in Night Vale his way of life was to run first, always. But he took advantage of the distraction and propelled himself forward, shoving Kevin as hard as he could.

Carlos knew from experience that Cecil, despite his wiry frame, was a very solidly built man. And Kevin was the same way. His wrists hurt just from the effort of pushing on him. But Kevin was also not in a very stable stance, twisted around as he was, and he was startled enough that at least he stumbled. His eyes shot between the two of them, as though not sure which attacker to focus on, and in the confusion Steve whipped the bag of rocks at Kevin's head.

That knocked him down, knife clattering to the floor before Steve hurriedly scooped it up in his hands. Kevin was not unconscious, blood trickling down his forehead as he grumbled in pain, teeth clenched. He made the motions of attempting to get up but after a few seconds didn't seem to be making any progress.

"--I'm really sorry, Kevin," Carlos managed to get out, albeit insincerely, as he felt himself tugged along again.

They were heading back to the exit, which was easier than maneuvering inside. As far as subtlety was concerned they had already broken their cover. All there was to do was follow their shoeprints in the blood and hope that there wasn't a third set of footsteps mingling in with their own.

As they ran, Carlos could swear he saw a man trembling in the corner of a dead-end branch hallway, hands over his face and bloodstain free. He looked a little bit like a slightly more yellow Cecil. But Carlos had never seen Cecil in anything as sensible as a sweater vest.

He was not given any time to talk to him or explore this strange occurrence, and it was over so quickly that he thought maybe he'd imagined it.

When they were in the lobby, hearts pounding and lungs struggling, Steve stopped and began to open the bag that he was holding in his hands. Out tumbled three polished bloodstones. Sucking in breath, he arranged them into a neat little ritual circle, turning them so that the symbol inscribed on each was facing up. They did not leave, though the exit doors were right there.

"What are you do--"

Before he could have time process what was happening, Steve had grabbed Carlos by the wrist and sliced his hand open with Kevin's knife.

"Sorry. It seems mean, but that's what she told me to do." Steve's voice felt far away very suddenly. Blood poured down Carlos' palm into the circle, and his vision started to pop and swim. "After I escaped, I found a place in the desert where the sun went down. And I saw her speaking to me in the stars."

Carlos opened his mouth, pulling up his hand to inspect the wound. Just like before, it was slowly starting to close all on its own, though by then the blood was already all over his skin. "Who told what?" No response came forward. After a moment he realized it was because he couldn't hear anything anymore. His hand was starting to become translucent.

Scientifically speaking, it did not feel like he was being projected, astrally. Every time that had happened before, it was the world around him that fizzled and faded. And it was always through his own mental effort--it was never out of his control, though of course there were times when he grew tired and got pulled back to the plane where his body resided.

No. He was not peering into another world. He was being dragged into it.

Carlos' eyes were encroached upon by a million blinking black shapes with legs. He felt himself fall backwards to the floor, but he did not feel himself land.


	13. A Penultimate Chapter About Huntokar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning that there are bugs and spiders and deer in this chapter, for those who might find reading about such things uncomfortable

The strange thing about waking up this time was that Carlos wasn't actually sure he wasn’t dead.

True, it was unlikely he'd still be able to perceive anything should he genuinely be deceased. But then that would assume that there was no afterlife. Perhaps the sensation of floating and not being real was a result of being in the afterlife, hence his continued ability to be aware of his own existence.

But his head hurt.

It wasn't void or sky that surrounded him, but it wasn't anything physical, either. It wasn't neither. It was too hard to process, and the headache didn't exactly help, so instead he decided to focus on what immediately about himself he could keep track kof, because he knew at the very least his own body wasn't going to break his mind.

Carlos was lying flat on his back.

Dizzy as he was he could still see what was directly in front of his face as it slowly fizzled into place. Looming above him was a woman with a deer head, hands at her sides. Bugs scuttled across her snout. Somewhere in the back of his mind he noted that Cecil had made a broadcast about this once.

He cleared his throat. "Hi."

"You are the interloper." Her voice crackled with age and ancient magic, and also that exhausted, done-with-this-shit quality that one might get from a sixty year old gas station cashier.

His smile didn't feel quite so winning when he tried it on her. "Yeah, hi."

"You are the one that is loved by two Cecils. Possibly more, if they met you."

The smile morphed into a wince. "Yeah."

She reached out a hand and helped him to his feet. A cockroach crawled across his palm. His brain felt a little like it was warping in his proximity to her, and was surprised to see they were standing on some sort of ground after all. "I wasn't sure this would work. I'll try not to keep you too long. I know you probably want to go home."

"I do. But, uh, scientifically speaking this is interesting." No, that wasn't right. "This is--incredible."

"Oh, yeah. I guess it would be to someone like you, wouldn't it? Everything is _in_ credible. Very little of it is credible." It sounded almost accusatory. Carlos sputtered, literally incapable of defending himself for a moment. "How like a scientist from U of WII."

He didn't understand that last part. You of double you eye eye. "From where?"

"Maybe you should stop talking and just let me explain before your brain implodes."

"Okay," he said, small and insignificant.

"I am Huntokar. And I hate you." The beady little deer eyes seemed to bore into him, unblinking, unchanging. His ears popped before she spoke again, monotone and tired, correcting herself. "I _wanted_ to hate you, Carlos. Every study you've ever done on my favorite town, every remark you've ever made about the distorted physics of Night Vale and its broken reality, it was, all of it, a testament to my failure. Even in the face of how loved you were, I selfishly wanted to hate you. And now, just as selfishly, I think you can help me."

"Uhm." It was growing harder to form concrete words. They were there in his brain-- _Why did you take away the other Night Vale's sky? How can I help? What exactly am I helping you with?_ \--but none of them made it out of his mouth. "Me help _you?_ " There were dark figures crawling on his eyes.

"That's why I asked Steve to bring you here. He has always been the one most adept at reading my signs. Even without any practice. --I hope that much explanation for your being here is sufficient to you, scientist. If you feel like your body is being slowly pressed in on at all sides, crushing into your spirit, with little time to save yourself--that's because it is."

He spun in a circle, looking. He saw nothing. Briefly, he was nothing.

"I stole Night Vale's reality. But, more pertinently, I stole their sky. I would like to get it back for them now. Now that attention is being drawn to them again. Night Vale would never destroy _itself,_ no matter how mistaken the individual citizens might be about the nature of that city. But Kevin and his Smiling God are a different matter." Huntokar put her hands on his shoulder to stop him from trying to perceive the reality around him, and for once he was grateful for the sudden contact. Her touch was feather-light, but as grounding as air pressure forcing oxygen into his lungs.

With that oxygen he achieved another sentence. "How do you do that?"

She withdrew. "You are an anchor, Carlos. Though your years in Night Vale has made your connection weak, you still carry inside you a little thread that is tied to the rest of the world. The world I tore them all from. Before, I was locked out of interfering, unable to do anything about it. But now is different."

Somehow, he managed, "Why?"

"Because you are here." She gestured to the nothing and everything around them, and then corrected herself. "Because you were _there_. In that pocket space. All that I needed was a little hole to reach through. Steve provided that for me. --Sorry about your head, by the way. I thought the tear was big enough. I'm sure the bleeding will stop eventually."

There was blood trickling out of his ears. He knew this without touching a hand to the sides of his head. "Go on."

"I am going to use you, Carlos. To save more of the people I love. To right one more wrong that I have done." She moved, and then she was behind him. He didn't dare move. In front of him, spilling out of the barely discernable ground, was dirt and sand and a very familiar looking patch of road that went on and on. There was a sign sticking out of the ground. It had an arrow pointing farther along the horizon, and a town name written on it. A gust of wind blew the sign around in a circle, and when the face of it was in Carlos' direction again all writing on it had disappeared.

Huntokar did not stop talking. "They will have to get used to some things. But it will be nothing, compared to what they have already gotten used to. They are a hardy people, those that live in Night Vale. No matter which Night Vale I look."

When he tried to walk in the direction of the sign, tried to walk home again, he felt a light tug on his back, keeping him in place. The entire image rippled, and he briefly felt foolish for believing it was really there.

"I am taking your connection to the world you came from, and your connection to Night Vale. It will be like a tether, or perhaps a ball of yarn in a dark maze. Perhaps it will be both these things. Perhaps I'll horribly break something again. There is always _that_ possibility, I suppose. But I do think it will work." Huntokar hesitated, pacing over a little so they were facing each other again. A tarantula scuttled around her ear. "I suppose in the interest of being benevolent I should ask and make sure you're okay with that."

"Tenant." His brain was like soup.

The deer eyes blinked. "I'll…take that as a yes."

Carlos stuttered. "Forgot."

"I'm just going to go ahead now."

" _Wait_." His body spasmed. It felt like--well it felt like someone was tugging a thread through his abdomen. The image of the road to Night Vale vanished completely, and in its place he saw forming around him the tiny city that he had been in only a few days ago. His world began to feel more solid, though the thread inside of him shimmered and unwound his stomach. Huntokar was no longer behind him, exactly.

She loomed in their sky, larger than he himself had ever stood, and yet not one part of her stretched through the floor into the bowling alley. She was holding a thread in her hand, and he realized with a sickening lurch that it was distantly connected to himself. Whistling a little as she worked, she leaned down and affixed the thread to the very top of the Night Vale clock tower. Then she strode back towards Carlos, and as she did she shrunk until they were roughly similar heights again.

He would have liked to have said that as a scientist he observed the entirety of what she did, and that he made careful notes for avenues of exploration later on, but the truth of it was that the second she easily slide her hand inside his stomach and pulled on the string again, the sky blinking and shifting above them, Carlos passed out.


	14. What Happened After

The first thought that Cecil had when he woke up in the morning was that it was too bright outside.

The second thought he had was that it should not be bright outside at all.

He should have shot up, immediately gone to the window to see why everything was so…bright. But he couldn't. He didn't want to leave the warm and soothing embrace of his blankets, wrapped in the vestiges of a comforting dream where he was lying in someone's arms. Someone whose face he couldn't see. …But it was probably Carlos.

Eventually though enough time had passed that he'd quite forgotten almost everything about the dream, and finally he rose into the light of the sun for the first time in years.

There were some messages on his answering machine from station management. Angrily demanding to know why he hadn't arrived for work. He ignored them. He went outside.

For the first few seconds before his eyes adjusted he felt blind. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky--the town was in the middle of a desert now, a wide expanse of blue as far as he could see. The sun hurt to look at directly, so he looked down. Saw how the light sparkled on the pavement. Something he had never noticed before, had always taken for granted.

He walked downtown. There were still no cars--there wouldn't be, of course. Not yet. But there were a lot of other people around, stumbling in a daydream like he was. It didn't feel real, but the heat bearing down on his face, making him sweat, was proof enough that he wasn't still wrapped in sleep. There was no rumbling. Usually they heard some in the morning, but the air was empty of the sound.

No, there was still noise. The sound of the wind. Birds. And, to his utter amazement, scanning the horizon again, the roar of a plane miles and miles away.

"Everyone else sees it too, right?" he asked a woman next to him, her lipstick applied perfectly on one half of her mouth before trailing down her chin on the other half, as though she had been distracted right in the middle of putting it on.

"I see it too."

"Okay. That's what I thought."

Had Carlos done this? For a brief moment he entertained the ludicrous notion of a now-giant Carlos picking Night Vale up in his arms and transplanting it overnight. But no--no, that was not what happened. He knew that to be merely a fantasy.

Perhaps after the trial Huntokar had decided they'd learned their lesson. That the time for penitence was over. Perhaps sparing him had made her see that they were not all bad, not too far from saving.

Or maybe Carlos just had nothing to do with it at all.

For once in weeks, it didn't matter one way or the other to him. For once, he allowed himself to stop thinking about that face, that hair, that teeth, those eyes. He thought about the sun. He thought breathlessly of the coming moon.

Dimly he was aware of the radio blaring out from a storefront behind him. It was Dana Cardinal's voice, saying, "I'm getting reports that he's been spotted wandering around downtown, much like many other citizens in the wake of this very sudden, but also quite pleasant, change. Let's hope that he remembers in all of his wonder that he's still expected to head in for work and that it's not fair to have his underpaid interns with no radio experience have to step in to--"

At that point he moved up to the storefront and shut the radio off.

She'd understand.

 

* * *

 

 

Huntokar had not answered his questions. At least, not conventionally.

She had written her true message in the sky. All he had needed to do was look up at the stars, and there he saw it. But in there had been explanations of the fundamental and changing laws that governed their reality--not a response as to why she had condemned his town.

Could one accuse a god of holding back in a conversation?

In the end, it seemed their punishment was a temporary affair anyway.

Soon after spiriting Carlos away, a door had opened for him made of polished new ebony, as though in reward. Scratched neatly into the top was the name "Night Vale". His hand trembled over the doorknob, wondering at how long it had been. He was still the same man that he was when he left. He had not aged, or decayed. But he felt so much older than that, merely through wandering.

"Steve Carlsberg."

He turned. Kevin was standing there, chest heaving, smile wide but teeth no longer touching as he breathed. There was fresh blood all over his front and down the side of his face, though he no longer looked to be injured in any capacity.

"I'm so _happy_ ," he wheezed, "That you found a way back to your home. That is what that is, isn't it?"

The door was still there. Steve rested his hand on the polished brass knob. "That's what Huntokar told me."

"And did _Huntokar_ \--" Kevin gestured around him, as though that added something to his speech. "--explain what to do about our problem? About reality tearing itself apart? Now that you've poached my scientist."

"Sounds like he wasn't _your_ scientist." Kevin's face fell as much as it could with him still smiling. "And uh--she says that's your fault and all the people in here, not the desert otherworld. Your town is too big and the buildings are too empty when you make them. --I'd work on that."

Kevin's eyebrows shot up, and while Steve wasn't sure if the advice was well received or not, frankly, he didn't care. He ripped open the ebony door and darted inside. When it closed behind him, he saw sky. When he turned, he could no longer see anything to indicate a door had even been there.

 

* * *

              

" _Reports are coming in that the tiny civilization living under the pin retrieval area in Lane 5 of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex has mysteriously vanished."_

Carlos had his team of scientists (minus one of them who was still undergoing treatment for their horns) keep the bowling alley clear of patrons while he scanned for--well, he wasn't sure. Radiation, or some other kind of signal. Eventually he was at the edge of the lane, looking into a pit of concrete and dark earth.

" _One would think this joyous news, considering how violent and warlike these tiny tiny people were. However, there have been some…revelations as of late that has made my joy…ambiguous. But more on that later."_

Cecil soon launched into the community calendar, radio blaring near the front, and Carlos hopped down into the hole. There had to be something left. Some clue to indicate where they had gone.

" _In some less ambiguously joyous news, Carlos has finally returned to us again! I say us, of course, as he is such an important member of town that surely_ everyone _had missed him, but naturally I am most happy that he returned to me, in particular._

_I did not ask him where he had been, because as you know he had told me when he called and simply asked me not to broadcast it. Now that he's told me everything, I'm no longer being held to that promise. But it's…hard to explain._

_He gave me a note from the pocket of his rumpled labcoat, which was covered in dirt and smears of blood. On the note was a message that I had written to him about getting him his phone back, a note I had no memory at all of writing. This, of course, troubled me--it's not the first time I've done something and then had no idea what I'd done afterwards. Carlos tried to tell me that I didn't write it, but it was in my handwriting and signed with my name. I asked him how I could **not** have written it._

_'You know', he said, waving his hands in an attempt to explain what was difficult or impossible to put into mere words, 'like that one time Cal came over. Remember?'_

_Listeners, I don't remember Cal coming over, either. All I remember is writing it down in my notes, and then telling you about it right here on the air._ "

If he looked closely, perhaps he could see blood. Perhaps the blood would still be there in the dirt, even if nothing that had been on top of it remained. Perhaps he would find a tiny house that didn't belong, one that had been left behind.

There was nothing. Of course.

"Palmer! You gonna let me fill that in or what?"

Carlos noticed with some small amount of derision that Teddy had taken very nicely to calling him his last name in contempt now that he had one he could remember. "Yeah, yeah. Just let me take some dirt samples to work on at the lab."

" _Carlos had said, and this was **quite** a shock at the time, that he was trapped in the tiny civilization that is now just a vacant crater. He said that they were putting him on trial for jumping into their city and crushing their town square. Naturally I feared for his safety. But he had told me that everything was fine, and that he had someone looking out for him down there. I had no choice but to believe him._

_Listeners, Carlos told me, pressing that note into my hand and asking me to read it again, that the man who made his time down there bearable was another version of me. A man who led a life I have not lived, and who had lived it in a Night Vale that never was._

_Or, was. Just. Was, somewhere else._

_The tiny city was in fact another Night Vale, a Night Vale that worshipped Huntokar the Destroyer, languishing underground with no sky and no hope._

_A Night Vale that tried not once, but two times now, to kill my beloved Carlos._

_So. You can see my dilemma._

_I think, for now I'm going to say, excepting the version of me that was decent to Carlos--as any Cecil Palmer should be-- **good riddance** tiny, **worse** Night Vale."_

Then it was time for traffic. Carlos made sure his dirt samples were secure in his pocket before climbing out of the hole, scowling a little at Teddy Williams and then making his way to his truck. As he left, Cecil's voice became harder to hear. For a short time he just sat in the driver's seat, before pulling out his brand new phone and switching on the radio.

"-- _Oop, Carlos just texted me. Heee's going to be in the lab running samples on the dirt where the city used to stand. So hopefully he'll have an idea of what happened to them soon. In the meantime, let's go to the weather."_

 

* * *

 

 

In the middle of a desert inside the US, where a town didn't used to stand, there was now a town.

It was a strange town. A place where they worshipped a pagan god they called _Huntokar the Destroyer_ , venerating her with blood sacrifices and ceremonial soft meat crowns. A place where all of their history textbooks deviated in very key ways from every history textbook taught in American schools. Where they did not pay attention to actual Federal law, but the whole community was insulated enough that no one felt the need to inform the Federal authorities.

They could never go back to the world that they had known. Nothing could live there anymore. But _a_ world was better than no world at all.

She very easily plucked Steve from the endless desert, and delivered him safely into the arms of his loving family. He would serve as her interpreter, as she taught them how to get along in this strange new place. She had no worries.

Perhaps a few worries.

People who went looking for Night Vale would be gambling. Sometimes they would find a charming little town with some slightly strange customs. Sometimes they would find a very dangerous little town with some very charming customs. She loved both. But rare was it that someone would arrive at the latter and choose to stay. Not without losing their mind first.

So far she only knew of one.

An author writing a book about small towns in America would be sure to make note of Night Vale's clocktower, in the coming weeks. He would run into a dazed and tired looking man clearing out old radio equipment while being given a tour inside it, but they would hardly exchange two words to each other. When he attempted to come back, he would instead find a dog park in the clocktower's place, and be arrested and locked away in an abandoned mineshaft before he could run into the same man out on a walk in Grove Park with his husband.

There were two desert towns called Night Vale.

But only one would show up on any map.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! The final chapter. The first long fic I've ever finished. Though it is admittedly shorter than some I've attempted in the past (which might be why I was able to get it done).
> 
> Thank you for reading, to anyone who's gotten here, and hopefully you enjoyed it. I might end up working on more shorts regarding the tiny town in the future but for now I think I might take a break from writing, resurface later.


End file.
